


Escape from Ganzar

by Teegar



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Mind Control, Non-Consensual, Novel, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-03-07 10:58:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 57,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18871825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teegar/pseuds/Teegar
Summary: On an ill-fated mission to the planet Ganzar, Chekov is abducted by slave traders.  Kirk must work with the ruling matriarchy to attempt to negotiate his release.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fanfic that was never published. I wrote it to “put my money where my mouth was” after writing a review of Lynda Roper’s fan-novel “Legacy” for the review-zine “Wanna Buy a Fanzine, Kid?” back in 1989.  
> (You can read the review in full here [Legacy](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Legacy_\(Star_Trek:_TOS_het_novel\)%20\))  
> “Legacy” was a sort of standard issue “boys in chains” type fanfic where Kirk gets stranded on a planet where she-women keep men as pets -- and so after being a boy in chains for a few chapters, he has to sort that crap out. Roper obviously did not come up with this plot device. Every single fantasy or science fiction show of the 60’s, 70’s, or 80’s seemed to have an episode devoted to their version of a “world gone wild” scenario where a mean matriarchy took men as slaves. Then within 20 to 45 minutes – depending on how long the episode lasted -- these fearsome ladies would lightly abandon their entire system of government because, thanks to the heroes of Our Show, they had finally gotten A Real Kiss. It was all pretty nakedly a reaction to the Women’s Rights Movement. And by the 1990’s I was pretty sick of it.  
> So, after writing the review of “Legacy,” I got to thinking, “What if you created a matriarchy that didn’t just fold when the Federation rolled into town? What would that look like? What if Our Heroes had to deal with an economic structure that rewarded a slave ownership and a socio-cultural system that reinforced ideas that made other classes of individuals inherently inferior?”  
> Now, I want to make it clear that I was not trying to make a slave owning culture palatable to the reader – just plausible. I was just trying to build a better mousetrap. Unlike the novel I had reviewed or the countless shows I had watched, I wanted my protagonists to really have to grapple with a situation where they suddenly found themselves members of the oppressed class – in a society where being male automatically meant you were a sex object and where white skin made you inherently ugly.  
> Creating this dystopia meant that “Escape from Ganzar” turned out to be more of a grim, harsh work than was my normal fare at the time. I got good response from my beta readers, though. They tended to like what we called “angst” at the time. (I think modern readers might call it “whump” or “torture the cinnamon roll.”) This story had more of that type material than I usually provided. So thus encouraged, I submitted the novel to a fanzine publisher I had a good relationship with who had never failed to publish anything I sent.  
> And it got rejected.  
> I was crushed – as one is – and stuck the whole thing in a box and didn’t look at it for thirty years… Until now.  
> Last winter, I was going through my files and boxes deciding what to post on AO3, what to donate to archives, and what I could just throw away, and I found “Ganzar” complete with its rejection letter. Re-reading it, I realized that the rejection was actually what in academia is called a “rewrite and resubmit” request.  
> The assistant editor – well, I’ll go ahead and say this was Peg Kennedy who worked with Bill Hupe. This isn’t a scandalous story, so there’s no harm in revealing that. Peg Kennedy was a big Kirk fan. I know this from working with her before and because she said so in the letter. She loved Kirk and she really despised Chekov. Therefore when reading my manuscript, she did what lucky Kirk fans can usually do when reading Star Trek fiction – she just skimmed through all the parts with the character she didn’t like and focused on the parts with Kirk.  
> Now, dear reader, as you are about to see, Captain Kirk is indeed in this novel. In fact, he appears in every chapter… for a couple paragraphs at least. Ensign Chekov is the main character. Chekov is VERY MUCH the main character. Not to spoil the plot here, but a lot of the parts with Kirk are kinda what you might call filler. So, bottom line, Peg Kennedy skimmed around 80% of my novel. In her comments, she complained that the plot was VERY difficult to follow (I’ll bet it was) and seemed to make sense only as a sort of weird parody with jokes that didn’t work (I’ll bet they didn’t).  
> If I had understood at that time that an editor had only read about 20% of my novel and was suggesting that I rewrite the whole thing starring her favorite character instead of mine, I might have been… well, pretty miffed… to put it mildly. Now, it just seems kinda hilariously typical of how that sort of thing went in those days.  
> So, here’s “Ganzar” -- an odd, grim, thus-far luckless Trek novel, finally seeing the light of fannish day…

 

Chapter One

 

"You're going to be a what for who?" tears of laughter were streaming down Lieutenant Kathy Hiroto's face as she sat in Deck Five's Officer's Lounge on the U.S.S. Enterprise.

"A bodyguard," Chekov explained, feeling a red glow creeping up his cheeks, "for him."

Him, in this case, was Commander Ammarsingh Ghyka, a Special Intelligence officer on detached duty to the _Enterprise_. He sat across the lounge from Chekov and his two luncheon companions discussing the final preparations for his mission with Mr. Spock. Ghyka was a tall, strongly-built black man who made a standard-issue Star Fleet uniform look like it was a costume specially designed to show off his impressive physique to picturesque advantage.

"Honey," Lt. Uhura said, pulling Chekov in close. "You guard that body and you guard it well. I'm going to hold you personally responsible for seeing nothing happens to it and it gets back for me to look at as soon as possible."

"Oh, yes," Hiroto seconded fervently, then added as Ghyka rose, turned his back to them, and bent to point out some detail to the Science Officer. "Oooooh, yes."

Chekov crossed his arms sullenly. "It's not exactly the most flattering assignment I've ever had."

The mission was to the unaligned planet Ganzar. It lay strategically in territory between space claimed by the Federation, the Klingons, and the Orions. Ganzar had several distinct disadvantages, though. The planet was rich in ginzite, a sustenance that emitted low band radiation that, while harmless to lifeforms, played havoc with sensors and transporters. 

The civilization that populated the temperate region of the most populous continent was matriarchal. That wouldn't have bothered the Federation at all if the society hadn't chosen to view men as private property to be bought and sold. The official government also had the annoying habit of looking the other way when male alien visitors were abducted and sold as slaves. Many such victims were eventually recovered, but a significant number had never been found. 

The logical solution was to compose all-female contact teams to Ganzar, but the Ganzarites quickly countered by enacting a law that forbid all alien females from the planet and made it legal to kill any found on sight. The Federation's next best alternative was the one they were currently using. The Ganzarites usually abducted men who were dark-skinned and over six feet tall. The Ganzarites were a dark-skinned humanoid race and ethnocentricly preferred aliens that looked like them. They took only big men because slaves were primarily used as laborers in the barbran fields. 

Barbran was the single most important crop on this particular continent. The Ganzarites used it in every way possible. The sap was used as medicine. The fibrous interior was woven into everything from clothes to buildings material. The hard stalks of the plant were used instead of wood. Harvesting it was slow, back-breaking work, somewhat like harvesting sugar cane. The Ganzarites had found that few would do it of their own free will.

Bearing in mind Ganzarite preferences, teams to Ganzar were now made up largely of men like Chekov and Captain Kirk, their chief negotiator for this mission, who were small and light-skinned. Special Agent Ghyka was a purposeful exception to this rule. It was hoped he'd make far too tempting a target to resist. Once abducted, Intelligence believed he'd be in a better position to investigate some rather disturbing evidence of covert Klingon presence on the planet. Ghyka was linked to Chekov and two other _Enterprise_ men, Ensign Davis and Lt. Johnson by subcutaneous directional indicators. While Kirk carried on negotiations, this small team of bodyguards was to follow the Intelligence agent's progress through Ganzar's slave trade network and see to it that Ghyka didn't become one of those miserable few who hadn't lived to see their ships again. 

"If those xenophobic Ganzarite bitches don't want you, Chekov, then it's just their own bad taste." Lt. Hiroto patted his arm soothingly.

"Yeah," Uhura concurred, coming gallantly to his defence. "Sweetie, I'd abduct you any day... Well, at least any day that old Ghyka there wasn't available."

"Oh, yes." Kathy Hiroto sighed, Chekov once more forgotten as the special agent bent over to pick up a dropped stylus. "Oh, yeeesss."

* * * ***** * * *

"As many times as I've been someone's bodyguard, I've never actually had one myself," Commander Ghyka said as he stood looking positively Olympian in the hot sunlight of the crowded marketplace of Hikasha, the Ganzarite city where Captain Kirk was already meeting with top leaders of the matriarchy.

"I suppose there's a first time for everything, sir," Chekov replied amiably. Walking though the marketplace with Ghyka was like walking in a circus parade with the elephants. Crowds parted. Everyone stared. Admiring comments flowed freely. Chekov himself felt curiously invisible.

The two Star Fleet officers spoke to each other in Standard, but clearly understood the talk that was going on around them. Because each of them could potentially become a permanent resident of the planet, all team members had taken the precaution of taking a crash course in the local language. The testimony of former unfortunates indicated that captives were immediately deprived of anything that looked "off-worldish" and that life was very hard for a man who became separated from his universal translator and attached to an impatient owner.

"If you're ready, sir, I think we should split up."

Ghyka laughed. "What's the matter, Chekov? Are you afraid that when they go for me they'll grab you by mistake?"

"No, sir." Chekov smiled wanly, knowing that if this mission didn't put him in the psychiatrist's office with a severely crushed ego, nothing would. "I'm afraid this indicator is going to burn a hole through my arm."

The directional indicators both of them wore under the skin of their forearms were simple devices. When in close proximity to each other, they generated a warm sensation. When facing the wrong direction or separated by distance they grew increasingly colder.

Ghyka laughed again and gave Chekov a friendly slap on the back that nearly knocked the breath out of the ensign. "All right. We'll put a little distance between ourselves. Don't worry if you lose sight of me, but if I'm not at the checkpoint in an hour, coordinate with the others and begin to search."

"Yes, sir." Chekov squinted into the distance, scanning the marketplace for Johnson and Davis who were both somewhere nearby. "Take care of yourself, sir."

Ghyka's loud laugh rang out again as he advanced into the appreciative throng. "No, Ensign," he called out, his white teeth gleaming in a broad smile. "That's your job."

"Yes, sir." As the crowd closed behind the intelligence agent, Chekov discovered that he was no longer invisible. Women were still staring at him, but their gazes were not longer covetous. Many frowned. Some laughed rudely.

While he was looking in the other direction, someone ran into him.

"Watch where you're going, you white-skinned alien freak!" the woman cursed him.

Before Chekov could construct a suitably vile reply, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his shoulder. He quickly reached back and was surprised to find a feather-tipped dart sticking out of his upper arm. He was even more unpleasantly surprised to feel the unmistakable warmth of a powerful tranquilizer entering his bloodstream.

"Oh, no!" He pulled the dart out of his shoulder and searched for the recently departed intelligence agent. "Commander Ghyka!"

Unfortunately, the drug acted more quickly than he could. As his vision blurred and dimmed, he fell face first into what seemed to be a sea of women.

* * * ***** * * *

"I'm not doubting your intelligence, Captain," a red-headed Ganzarite leader was saying. "I just don't think any male can fully appreciate the necessities of our culture."

"Yes, I suppose you have a great deal of difficulty explaining them to your own males," Kirk replied with a sweet smile to cover his sarcasm. A signal from Yeoman Spears who was acting as his aide gave Kirk an excuse for a much needed break. "Ladies, if you will pardon me for a moment..."

While the Ganzarites shook their heads and clicked their tongues at what they perceived as male frailty, Kirk walked to a secluded alcove outside the meeting room where Spears handed him a coded message.

"Subject did not appear at checkpoint," the message stated tersely. "Search commencing. Johnson."

Kirk nodded favorably as he handed the message back for his yeoman to destroy. Five minutes ago, he'd received a similar message from Davis. The Ganzarites had taken the bait and things seemed to be going as planned. Only one small detail was amiss. Why hadn't he heard from Chekov?

* * * ***** * * *

The first thing that Chekov thought when he woke up was that his head felt like it was in a vice. When he opened his eyes, not only was what he saw completely unfamiliar, it made no sense. A bucket attached to the room's extremely low ceiling seemed to be hanging over him. Everything smelled like a strong disinfectant. After a second, he knew he had the scene upside down. The bucket was on the tiled floor. His head was positioned over it for some reason. When he tried to move, he came to the startling realization that his head felt like it was in a vice because it _was_ in a vice. He was lying on his stomach on something flat and cold. He tried to move his arms and legs but they were held in place by restraining bands.

"This one's conscious," some woman who was near, but out of sight said. She spoke a Ganzarite dialect that Chekov understood, but with a broad midland accent that was a little out of place in Hikasha, a coastal city.

A pair of smallish feet clothed in native footgear walked into Chekov's extremely limited range of vision.

"All right," this second woman said. "Let's get started."

Someone picked up what sounded like a very large pair of scissors, lifted the bottom hem of his uniform tunic and began to cut. Chekov gasped involuntarily when the cold metal made brief contact with his bare skin.

"Tranquilizer, please," the second woman requested calmly as she slit his tunic into two halves. "Be sure you check the blood type and the dosage. This alien is a lot smaller than the last one. They may not be the same kind."

Just about the time that Chekov had become alert enough to say something, a hypo hissed against his back and he suddenly became too tired to speak. It occurred to him drowsily that the other alien they were talking about must be Ghyka. This was good, because even though Chekov had been captured, he was still near the man he was supposed to watch. He remembered that he could tell how close he was to the intelligence agent by the warmth or coolness of a certain spot in his arms.

Strangely enough, neither arm felt hot or cold. Both felt numb and slightly sore when he tried to move them -- sore in that peculiar way your arms always felt just after a subcutaneous device had been removed.

This realization was bad enough to pierce through his drug induced fog. "Oh, no," he moaned in Standard, "Oh, no."

A warm hand patted the back of his thigh. "Come on, little fellow, be still."

An even worse thought followed as Chekov heard the sound of containers being opened and remembered a reason why he might be on his stomach in what looked and smelled suspiciously like a hospital. One of the reasons that Federation sources believed some advanced culture was meddling in affairs on Ganzar was that these women were suddenly leaping forward at an incredible pace in developing technology capable of subduing and inducing obedience in the men they captured. 

Women of the temperate zone had been augmenting their supply of field workers with big men kidnapped from the nomadic tribes of the northern regions of this particular continent for centuries before the first contact team arrived. The time honored method of gaining compliance in these unwilling laborers had involved drugs and strict systems of punishment and rewards. The results were mixed. Slaves often ran away or revolted. Slave population was kept low. One woman rarely owned more than five men. Usually men were owned by families of women who had a certain percentage of men who were free and hired as servants and overseers. During the seventy-five years that followed the Federation's first contact, the balance had steadily changed in favor of the ruling matriarchy. First new and more powerful drugs had appeared. Next surveillance went from a haphazard process to the development of complex monitoring systems. Finally, in the last ten years -- with no other parallel in other branches of Ganzarite technology -- a hideous little thing they called "the device" began to show up. It was half organic, half mechanical. The organic half was a leech-like creature of unknown origin. It sent microscopic tendrils to seek out the spinal cord of its host and derive sustenance from the bio-electric impulses that flowed there. The mechanical half was a computer-like processing center that read the bio-electric impulses and could re-direct them according to an pre-programmed plan. In a way that Federation science could not explain or reproduce, this device could send irresistible sensations of pleasure or pain to its victims' brains on the cue of a word, sight, or touch.

"Oh, no." Chekov felt cold air on his back and hoped this was all a very bad dream. "Oh, no."

"A little bit more," one woman ordered the other.

After the hypo hissed against his shoulder again, Chekov found it easier to accept that it was just a bad dream.

"Relax," the woman said soothingly as she put something clammy on his back. "Don't fight it and it won't hurt a bit."

With so much tranquilizer running through his system, he didn't have much choice. He felt a very peculiar sensation as if raindrops were falling through his skin under the clammy thing. It almost felt pleasant until the creature made contact with his spine.

"Noooo!" His body spasmed uncontrollably against the restraints. His head burst with unimaginable pain.

"Not another screamer," he heard one of the women sigh as the world went black again.

* * * ***** * * *

Chekov woke up. His pounding head felt like it was in a vice. He opened his eyes and saw an empty bucket that smelled like bile and disinfectant.

"He's back with us," a woman's voice said. The words were strange. Chekov wondered how he could understand them.

"Listen to me," another woman said. He could only see her shoes. It seemed to him he'd seen them somewhere before. "The device is now active. You must listen to the following: Never disobey a woman. Never think of harming a woman. Never think of the device on your back."

Chekov wanted to tell her that he never harmed women, but couldn't think of the right words. What was the device? He seemed to remember that it had something to do with the pain... and with his back... And he had to get it off! Suddenly the pain was more than a memory. It started again from the middle of his back and rode over him in a red-hot agonizing wave.

"This one is going to take a while," one of the women said wearily to the other, as Chekov surrendered to the pain and blacked out again.

* * * ***** * * *

Kirk knew the news was bad from the looks on Johnson and Davis' faces. He had suspected something was wrong as soon as they called him away from his dinner.

"Report," he ordered as he approached.

Instead of answering, Johnson held out his hand. In it were two flat round disks -- subcutaneous implants.

"Ghyka?" Kirk asked, taking them.

"Yes, sir. We found them forty-five minutes ago discarded into a ditch north of here."

Kirk turned the disks over with his thumb. "The Ganzarites should have no way of detecting..."

"Sir," Davis interrupted, holding out another handful of the same. "We found these too."

"Chekov. Dammit." Kirk bit his lip and shook his head. "Gentlemen, the trouble has just begun."

* * * ***** * * *

Chekov awoke to the sensation of a wet cloth scrubbing his face. When he jerked backwards, his head made violent contact with a wall behind him.

"Oooo!" the fat old woman holding the scrub cloth winced for him. "That's an unpleasant way to come back into the world, isn't it, laddie?"

Chekov looked at her blankly. He recognized nothing. His brain seemed to be malfunctioning. It wasn't giving him very much help in processing this new situation. For instance, who was this woman? She had a strangely shaped forehead and nose. Her skin was mustard-colored and she spoke a language that sounded unfamiliar even though he could understand what she was saying. What was this place he was in? It looked like a barn of some sort. The floor was dirt and what looked like farming implements leaned against the walls. More importantly, why was he tied up? His aching arms were tied to a hook in the wall above his head. His ankles were bound as well. There was even a gag in his mouth.

His mouth felt terrible. It was completely dry and tasted as if he'd been violently ill. When he tried to shift from hanging limply by his wrists to standing on his feet, needles of pain exploded in his arms and blood rushed painfully to his head.

"You don't feel very good, do you?" The fat woman asked jovially. She helpfully gave his arms and shoulders a brisk massage that helped get the blood flowing again and felt simply marvellous. "You don't smell very good either."

Chekov looked at her curiously. It didn't seem logical that a simple touch should feel so pleasant. 

She laughed and wiped his neck and chest off with the damp cloth. "You've got pretty eyes, though, don't you? For a white-faced alien dwarf, you've got real nice eyes."

Chekov narrowed his nice eyes at what he knew was an insult. "Dwarf" seemed particularly unfair since he was perhaps an inch taller than she was.

"You understand me, don't you?" The fat woman grinned and patted his face roughly. "Well, aren't you the smart little thing? They said you spoke the language."

Chekov was wondering who "they" were and what language it was that he could speak when he heard a low moan. Down the wall from him, bound as he was, was a big, black man who seemed familiar. He was positive that he should know this man. He blinked twice, concentrating very hard, for it seemed very important that he should remember who this man was. Finally, his brain seemed to drop back into gear. He knew exactly who he was. He was Ensign Pavel Andreivich Chekov of the U.S.S. _Enterprise_. This man was Commander Ghyka of Special Intelligence. They were on the planet Ganzar to infiltrate the slave trade network -- which apparently they'd done all too well. 

"Hey, now." The fat woman waddled over to Ghyka. "You're not supposed to be awake yet."

She pulled a hypo out of her pocket and hissed it into his shoulder.

"Do you know what this is?" the fat woman asked Chekov as she moved back in front of him and held up the hypo. "Can you make this out?"

It took Chekov a moment to decipher the Ganzarite characters for the word "viska" \-- a drug that would act like strychnine in a human system! He turned his head expecting to see Ghyka writhing in agony, but the intelligence agent was sleeping deeply.

The fat woman laughed. "So you can read, can you? Well, aren't you the clever thing?"

Chekov would have frowned at having been tricked so easily if the gag wasn't severely limiting his range of expression.

"This isn't for him." 

As the fat woman began to fasten up the front of his shirt, Chekov registered for the first time that he wasn't wearing his uniform. Instead he was dressed in a very simple version of the native attire. Ganzarites didn't use buttons or zippers. They preferred to leave cloth in a whole piece when possible. Ties were added to the material and passed through slashes to achieve the desired shape and fit. Although the weave of the green upper body garment and the brown pants he wore was coarse and unadorned, the ingeniously intricate way they were tied together made them quite decorative.

"Pretty soon a lady...." The fat woman paused, checked over her shoulder and lowered her voice. "Well, between you and me, she's no lady. She's an upstart Northerner who I hope has more money than good sense. At any rate, she'll be here any minute. And if she doesn't buy you... then this will be for you."

Chekov swallowed hard as the hypo labeled poison was held in front of him again.

"You understand that, don't you?" The fat lady nodded grimly. "However clever you are, I can't keep you, there's no one else to take you, and we can't send you back where you came from. So you mind your manners, laddie. Don't wriggle or make a fuss and don't talk except to say "Yes, ma'am" and "No, ma'am". If I have to..."

The fat woman was interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps. She gave Chekov's face one last swipe before she dashed to the other side of the room with surprising agility and assumed a pose so nonchalant it was easy to believe she'd been waiting like that for hours.

The woman who entered was younger, thinner, and taller than his captor. She had dark rose-bronze skin and red hair that she wore in a severe, elaborately braided coiffure. Her expression was none too pleased when she entered. When she saw Chekov, it deepened into a forbidding frown. "I hope you're not going to try to sell me that, Stah."

"Tarell," Stah, the fat woman, placated her client, "you asked for a small one..." 

"He's white," The woman pointed out accusingly. 

"He's an off-worlder," The fat woman replied. "They come in several colors."

Tarell crossed her arms. "I know that. I also know the white ones are lazy and sickly."

"Well, you're not going to put a little one like this one in the fields." Stah moved beside Chekov and with a discreet fist in his back forced him to stand very straight. "And this one's very clever. He can understand the language, read..."

"Now, this is what an off-worlder should look like," Tarell interrupted, crossing to Commander Ghyka.

"Already sold to Auntie Foushe," The fat woman informed her flatly.

"I think the Aunties have too many privileges..."

"Are we going to talk politics or do business?" Stah interrupted impatiently. "Now as I was saying, this one is well suited for your needs. He understands the language, reads..."

"You keep saying he _understands_ the language." Tarell smiled humorlessly. "Doesn't he _speak_ it?"

"Well, of course, he does. Why wouldn't he?"

"You've not actually heard him speak, have you, Stah?"

"Let's see, then." Stah untied Chekov's gag. "All right, you. Speak."

Chekov tried, but his mouth was so dry he couldn't make a sound at all at first. After several abortive attempts to clear his throat he managed to choke out a whispered, "Water... please."

"He's sick," Tarell concluded triumphantly as the fat woman hurried to retrieve something from a chest.

"No, he's not." Stah pulled out what looked like a baby bottle. She handed it to Tarell. "He just needs a swig of this. Here, give it to him."

Tarell stared at her incredulously. "Not me."

Stah patiently put the bottle in her hand. "He asked you for it... and even said please. I tell you, he's a clever, well-behaved, little off-worlder. Exactly what you ordered."

Tarell gave her a dubious look, but then sighed and held the bottle out to Chekov. "Here."

Chekov could feel the color rising in his cheeks at the prospect of being fed like a zoo animal, but there seemed no other alternative to dying of thirst. He avoided the Ganzarite woman's eyes as he leaned forward and took a tentative pull on the bottle. It was filled with a sugar water solution that was a balm to his parched throat and even seemed to ease the pain in his throbbing head. 

"See how gentle he is," Stah said coaxingly. "And look at his pretty eyes..."

Tarell snorted, evidently not at all impressed by his looks. She abruptly pulled the bottle out of his reach. "Have you got any skills?"

"Uh, I..." Chekov was dumbfounded for a moment as he tried to calculate what would be counted as a skill on this planet. "Well, I can..."

"What did you do in the offworld?"

"I'm a Star Fleet officer," Chekov replied, refusing to speak of his status in the past tense. "I work mainly as a navigator."

The Ganzarite woman squinted at this unfamiliar verbiage. "What's that? A sailor? What am I going to do with a sailor?"

"He means to say he's a machine worker." The fat woman smiled as she caught Chekov's eye and gave the pocket with the hypo of viska a significant pat. "That's what you meant to say, isn't it, laddie?"

Now it was Chekov's turn to puzzle over an unfamiliar use of language. "Machine worker" was not a Ganzarite phrase. It was an idiomatic way of saying "computer operator" taken straight from one of the major languages spoken by the Orions. "I have worked with computers, if that is what you mean."

"Computers." Tarell gave another snort as if she found the word unbearably pretentious. "Oh, he's a right little offworlder, isn't he?"

Stah shoved the bottle back into the ensign's mouth, apparently thinking it was better for business if he didn't talk. "But he can run that machine you bought. Do your accounts..."

"I can run my own machine," the other woman retorted indignantly.

"Listen," Stah said, taking the bottle back again and putting her hands on her hips. "I know he's as white-faced and offworldish as they come, but the yellow pills are going to work on him as well as they will on that black beauty over there. With them, he'll give you daughters and only daughters -- one or even two a year until you've had enough -- and that's guaranteed."

Chekov's eyes opened at this. Not only was he less than pleased at the prospect of being sold as breeding stock, he was also surprised that they could do so. Ganzarites were humanoid, not human. Although he and his would-be mistress might be able to copulate, he was certain the two races could interbreed only with special medical aid, if at all. These "yellow pills", if they worked as promised \-- allowing conception between two dissimilar species and pre-determination of the gender of that offspring -- were far beyond anything the Ganzarites should be capable of producing. It occurred to him that such a drug was more likely to have been invented by those great interbreeders of alien races of all descriptions - the Orions.

"I don't want white babies," his prospective owner said flatly. "Even if they're girls."

"Tarell, you'd better take what daughters you can get, even if they're green," Stah said -- the soft-sell approach clearly discarded. "Because that man you're breeding with now isn't going to give you anything but sons. You're not getting a day younger and you're going to end up like your aunt Cella did, with no daughter to inherit. Your estate will pass to one of your sisters or some snot-nosed Northern niece who'll come down here and squander half what you own before she figures out which end is up."

Chekov felt his appointment with a hypo full of poison drawing closer as the silence between the two women thickened.

Tarell spat out a vile idiomatic phrase in her native Northern dialect. As close as Chekov could figure, it translated as having something to do with having sexual relations with a kitchen implement of some sort.

Stah, always the salesman, nodded Tarell towards Chekov. Although the other woman was obviously very angry, even she had to smile at the comical look of puzzlement on the ensign's face.

"You've never heard talk like that, have you, offworlder?" she asked.

"No, ma'am." Chekov couldn't help blushing. "Never quite like that."

"All right, you old bitch," Tarell said, turning back to the fat woman. "I'll not give you more than five bits a pound for him."

"I don't sell men by the pound like they do up North," Stah said. "And I'm asking a full seven chips for him."

"Well, if you'd clean the dung out of your ears you'd realize I just offered you five and a quarter."

"I'll not take less than six and a half for him," the fat woman countered stubbornly.

"I'll not give more than five and a half and that much only because I might want to do business with you again in the future. Even if you don't sell men by the pound, I know you buy them by the pound. And you can't convince me you paid more then four and a third for this one. I'll give you five and a half so you can make back your expenses and have a little profit, but don't forget that I grew up selling men."

The fat woman sighed. "All right. Five and a half. But the food and medicine for him will bring it up to six and a quarter."

Tarell crossed her arms as Stah bustled over to get the bill of sale. "And how often am I going to be paying that?"

"Oh, this is the most you'll have to put out for that for awhile." Stah gave her a sheet to sign. "I'll have it delivered to you this afternoon."

Tarell frowned as she signed. "Do I get to take _him_ with me now?"

"Well," the fat woman began slowly, "he's not been properly broken in yet..."

Neither Chekov nor the other Ganzarite were pleased by the tenor of this statement.

"And what's that going to cost me?" Tarell demanded. "And how long would I have to wait? A reputable dealer would..." 

"Do it yourself, then." Stah deftly untied the rope between Chekov's wrists and the hook above him and handed it to Tarell. "Take him. He's yours."

Sold at around three-quarters of his original asking price, Chekov now knew how a used hovercraft must feel. He watched the person holding a piece of paper that legally designated him as her property while she watched the fat woman untie his ankles.

"Excuse me, miss," he said, pointing as best as he could to the still unconscious Commander Ghyka. "But I was wondering if he will be..."

"Come on." His new owner cut him off with a forward jerk on the rope. "Stah, see that you get those supplies to me promptly. I'd hate to have this one starve to death before the ink dries on his bill of sale."

"Always a pleasure doing business with you, Tarell," the fat woman said ironically as she held the door open for them.

Chekov squinted in the bright sunlight as he was led outdoors. It was immediately obvious that he was far from the busy costal city where he'd been abducted. He was now in a small rural village, possibly in the midlands from the looks of it. Goat-like domesticated animals guided by burly native men pulled sleds of farm goods down the dirt street. In Hikasha, a prosperous trading center, many structures were made of stone. Here even the grandest dwellings had woven walls and thatched roofs stretched over wooden frames. Neat fences of stone or barbran stalks surrounded many of the houses.

Knowing that the "Aunties" or community leaders were the likely owners of such well-kept dwellings, Chekov wondered which of these fences Commander Ghyka was destined to end up behind. 

"Pardon me, miss," he ventured. "But the man who was with me, will he..."

He froze as Tarell turned to him with a less than pleased look on her face. For some reason, this seemed like a very bad thing. She took a step towards him and he took an instinctive step backwards in response. This made her laugh.

"You are a mild-mannered little thing, aren't you? Come here." 

The Ganzarite pulled him forward by the shirt front until they stood only a few inches apart. Tarell was a tall woman, significantly taller, in fact, than the ensign. Chekov didn't usually let such things bother him. However under the circumstances, looking up at her made him distinctly uncomfortable. She smiled as she brushed his hair off his forehead in an unmistakably possessive gesture. "I do like your eyes."

"Thank you," Chekov said, fighting another blush and looking anywhere but into her eyes. For some reason it seemed incredibly exciting to have this complete stranger that he had no reason to like at all standing so close.

With one finger under his chin, she firmly tilted his head back so that he had no choice but to look at her. Pausing only long enough to let him realize that this was exactly what he was craving, she kissed him full on the lips. Waves of almost orgasmic pleasure travelled up and down his spine.

"Oh, my God," he breathed in Russian when she released him.

"Now what does that mean?" Tarell grinned. "That you liked that?"

Chekov cleared his throat and tried to suppress the side of him that was arguing that winding up as breeding stock in an alien slave culture wasn't that bad a fate for a young Star Fleet officer. "It means I'm in a lot of trouble."

His captor laughed and pulled forward on the rope again. "Come on."

Chekov remonstrated with himself sharply as he meekly allowed himself to be led deeper into the heart of the alien community. Commander Ghyka was unconscious and stripped of any device that would allow the team to pin down his location. The entire mission was now in jeopardy. This was no time for Chekov to let his hormones get the better of him. Still it was very hard to consider doing anything that might make Tarell angry with him.

'Something's happened to my mind,' Chekov decided silently. 'They've done something to me to make me feel this way.'

Unfortunately knowing that didn't make it any easier to stop following the Ganzarite woman like a puppy on a leash. He had the vague feeling that he should know exactly how the Ganzarites had made him so compliant. However, trying to think of what they could have done to him to induce this sudden irrationality just gave him a terrible headache. He could now see how all those Federation men had become permanent residents. They weren't found because what the Ganzarites did to them made them not want to be found.

'Lt. Uhura is certainly going to be disappointed in me,' he sighed to himself sadly, remembering her strong desire to see Commander Ghyka again. 

It seemed like a very terrible thing that he should fail to please her -- more terrible than the prospect of the mission collapsing and his deserting Star Fleet. The thought made him feel so uncomfortable and depressed that he felt he had to do something. He had to at least try to get Commander Ghyka back to the lieutenant.

Once resolved to take action, it was very easy to plan his escape. After all, the only thing he could see binding him to Tarell was a strange feeling of attraction and a length of rope that she held carelessly in one hand. Looking around he could see the street was almost empty -- no help for Tarell in sight.

Taking a deep breath, he planted his feet firmly and pulled backwards with all his might. The rope flew from Tarell's hand. Before she even seemed to notice, he turned and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

"No!" He could hear her shout, as his feet pounded against the hard-packed dirt. "No! Stop!"

Hearing her say that made him want to stop very badly. Although he kept moving away from her, he could feel himself slowing. It was very hard to think -- very hard to decide what to do.

"Stop now!" she screamed. "You will not disobey me!"

At the word "disobey" a terrible pain -- like a bolt of electricity \-- shot though him. Temporarily stunned, he stumbled and fell.

Tarell was on him in a minute. "What in the name of fornication do you think you were doing?" she demanded, her breath coming in deep, angry heaves.

Chekov rolled over to face her. Seeing her upset made him feel terrible. His back hurt and his head ached. "I'm sorry," he said, not knowing why he'd done such and awful thing.

"Not as sorry as you're going to be," the Ganzarite promised grimly. She took the sash from around her waist and tied one end around each of his knees. She left enough slack between to allow him to take only small strides. After pulling him roughly to his feet, she took the loose end of the rope around his wrists and tied it around his neck, giving her a choke hold. "There," she said, pulling it to a snug fit. "Now do you think you can behave, or am I going to have to pick you up and carry you?"

"Yes... I mean, no.. I, I..." Chekov couldn't make himself meet her eyes. "I'm very sorry."

"Oh, you've not heard the end of this," she said, throwing the loop of rope between his neck and his wrists over her shoulder and taking a secure two-handed hold on it. When she set off once more on her way, he had to take awkwardly quick steps to keep up with her. "But I'm not going to let you make me lose my temper. All my reputation in this town needs is for someone to see me beating my servants in the public street. No, we'll wait until we're behind the gates of my own fornicating house and have a meaningful discussion about this little incident, just like a proper fornicating Southern lady would do."

Chekov was glad that her profanity was losing a little something in translation. "It's just that I really must..."

"I'd shut my fornicating mouth if I were you, offwordler," she advised.

On the other hand, it wasn't losing that much. "Yes, ma'am," he replied obediently.

Just when Chekov thought he couldn't take another stiff-legged half-running half-sized step, they turned into the gate of one of the houses. Chekov was somewhat surprised to see that it was one of the finer and more elegant buildings with a well-crafted stone wall. He remembered the fat woman saying something about Tarell inheriting an estate from an aunt. Tarell's abrasive manner certainly didn't seem to indicate that she would be the owner of such a dwelling.

"Well, here it is," she said, releasing the latch on the front door with a small, square key. "Your new home."

The interior of the house was beautiful. The walls of the foyer were woven of strands of barbran dyed in hues of green and gold. The floor was made intricately patterned tiles of stained wood and cut stone.

"Sahshell!" Tarell yelled, closing the door behind him. "Sahshell!"

"Well, I don't believe it," said a musical voice from a doorway to Chekov's left. "I see it, but I just don't believe it."

The woman in the doorway was obviously a relative of Tarell's. The family resemblance was unmistakable. Somehow, though, whereas Tarell was only handsome, this woman was beautiful. She was younger than Tarell, softer. Her eyes were light green and catlike.

"This is my sister, Sahshell," Tarell said, bending to untie his knees. "Obey her as you would obey me."

"Hello." Chekov smiled, forgetting for a moment that he was meeting this lovely woman as alien slave, bound hand and foot.

Sahshell smiled as she slid her long, green, cat's eyes over him appraisingly. "I don't know what Tirst is going to say about this one."

Tarell straightened and put her hands on her hips. "Tirst is only a servant in this house. It doesn't matter what he says. I didn't buy him for Tirst anyway." 

Her sister gave Chekov a dubious look. "Who did you buy him for?"

"For myself." Tarell untied the rope from around his neck. "He can read, speak the language properly, run a machine... Proper ladies here are attended by private secretaries, not some stinking field hand with a Northern accent so thick I have to repeat everything he says."

"This one doesn't smell too good right now," Sahshell pointed out.

Tarell ignored this as she loosened the rope around his wrists. "Besides, I got a good deal for him."

"How much? Four and a third?"

"Five and a half," Tarell admitted grudgingly as she handed her sister the bill of sale. "But this isn't the Vidon marketplace. You have to go through middlemen here... allow them a little profit."

Sahshell frowned as she took the document. "That's over five bits a pound."

"They don't sell men by the pound here." Tarell left Chekov free to rub the circulation back into his wrists while she wound the rope into a neat coil. 

"That's a pity because this one would be a bargain at the going rate." Sahshell carefully perused the bill of sale. "Why did you agree to this?"

"What?" Tarell's attention moved to her sister, turning her back on the ensign.

"You've agreed to buy supplies for him exclusively from Stah for the next four years." 

This, Chekov knew, was a prime chance for him to make his exit. It was very hard to think of leaving, but he pacified these concerns by telling himself he was only going to check and see if the door was locked from this side.

"Why, that old bitch!" Tarell was saying as he took a careful step backwards. 

Without turning away from the sisters, he walked his fingers up the door behind him searching for the latch.

"Ow!" he yelped in pain when his fingers finally met the cold surface of the doorplate. The metal seemed to be coated with acid. He held his stinging fingers in front of him, unable to believe that they showed no signs of damage or even of redness from the burning contact. After a moment, he realized that he had attracted some very unwanted attention. He looked up to find two similar pairs of displeased eyes upon him.

"What did you do?" Tarell demanded, advancing on him threateningly.

"I, I.." Chekov stammered in a panic. There was no place to retreat to. He tried to hide his offending member behind his back, but Tarell jerked his arm forward by his sleeve.

Sahshell crossed her arms. "I begin to see why you got such a good price on this one," she commented dryly.

"Did you try to open the door?" Tarell gave his arm a rough shake. "Did you touch the latch?"

"Well..." Chekov tried weakly to pull away from her. She wasn't any stronger than he was, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to use his full force. "Well, yes, but..."

"We put an end to this sort of behavior right now." Tarell grabbed him behind the collar and propelled him forward at a quick march.

"At least he's honest," Sahshell said, following in their wake.

Chekov was firmly guided down the hallway and into a large, airy room that seemed to be a combination of a study and a sitting room. Like the foyer, it was also quite beautifully arranged. The walls were a woven pattern of ochre and mauve. On a raised platform at one end was a large desk with a polished stone top. In an alcove to the side was something covered that looked suspiciously like a computer terminal. The rest of the room was filled by tables and chairs that were of authentic Ganzarite design. Ganzarite furniture looked a little like lawn furniture from Earth. Chairs had woven, hammock-like seats. Other chairs were simply big, over-stuffed pillows. The only uncomfortable looking seat in the entire room was a three-legged stool that Tarell pulled from a corner and placed before him.

"Sit down," she ordered.

Chekov complied with an uneasy glance over his shoulder as Sahshell closed the door to the room behind her. That seemed to be the only exit. Large windows were to his left, but they were filled with a thick, bubbly, translucent material that looked like a strong glass.

From somewhere behind the desk, Tarell picked up a flattened piece of barbran stalk. It was around a foot long and an inch and a half wide. "Do you know what this is?"

Chekov smiled weakly. "Composition or function?"

"He has a sense of humor, too," Sahshell said approvingly. "I like that in a man. That's one of the only things I like about Tirst, his sense of humor."

"This," Tarell continued, ignoring her. "Is what civilized Southern ladies use to correct servants who displease them."

"Oh," Chekov said, very politely.

"This, on the other hand..." From out of the desk, Tarell drew and evil-looking woven quirt that was over three feet in total length. "...is what Northern women use to beat some sense into obstinate, shit-for-brains offworlders."

"Well," Chekov replied carefully. "I'm glad that you are such a civilized Southern lady."

Tarell laid both instruments of torture on the desktop. "Now, explain to me why you keep trying to run away. You know that's not what you should be doing, don't you?"

The thing Chekov couldn't explain was not why he kept trying to leave, but why he'd allowed this primitive to detain him this long. 

"As I said before," the ensign began, knowing in advance his explanation was going to fall on deaf ears, "I'm a Star Fleet officer. My mission is in jeopardy. There are many people depending on my return..."

"He has his memory," Sahshell observed, as if this was surprising.

Tarell seemed to take no note of her sister. 

"Oh, I see." She folded her hands thoughtfully behind her back. "Your problem is that no one's taken the time to explain things to you yet. Well, I will. You are no longer in the offworld. You are here now and you will remain here for the rest of your life. Everything you did or were in the offworld is completely irrelevant. You aren't going back there ever, so you should forget about it as soon as possible. You belong to me now. All you need to worry about is pleasing me. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Chekov replied, "however..."

"The first thing you're going to have to learn, offworlder," she interrupted sharply, "is not to talk so fornicating much."

Chekov sighed. "Yes, ma'am."

"The next thing you need to know is that you must never touch metal surfaces... but since you'll get the same little surprise you got this time every time you try, I don't think that will be too hard to remember. The last thing you need to learn is that you're never, never, ever to try to run away from me again. When I catch you -- and I will catch you -- I will beat you within an inch of your miserable life, do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," Chekov replied meekly, keeping any plans to the contrary to himself for the moment.

"All right." Tarell crossed her arms over her chest and nodded towards the desk. "Now fetch that stick for me." 

Chekov's heart began to beat a little quicker. "Why?"

"I think you need something to help you remember this discussion."

Chekov looked back and forth uncomfortably between the items on the desk and the Ganzarite woman. Actual corporal punishment seemed to him to be taking this whole slavery thing a bit too far. "I assure you that's not necessary."

Tarell stepped forward and grabbed a handful of his hair. "Don't ever contradict me," she warned, pulling his head painfully backwards. "I will decide what is and is not necessary. Now, do as I say."

"No." Chekov reached up to pull her hand away. Somehow he just couldn't make himself touch her, though. "I will not do it."

"Oh, Tarell." Sahshell shook her head. "He's not been conditioned at all."

"He's been conditioned." Tarell released her grip on his hair, then unexpectedly backhanded him. "See."

Chekov put both of his hands to his stinging cheek in disbelief. He'd been slapped before, but it had never felt like this. The pain was unnatural -- as violently intense as a burn or an electric shock. On the heels of the unpleasant physical sensation came a great feeling of depression and shame, as if he'd done something terribly wrong.

"He just hasn't been broken in yet," Tarell explained.

"Why didn't you have Stah..?"

"You don't think I can handle this one myself?" Tarell snapped in reply and Pavel Chekov, who had stood up to aliens three times his size, ion storms and Klingon battlecruisers, flinched at the sound of her voice.

"But he's an offworlder," her sister replied, completely unintimidated. "If he has his memory, he'll try to run away."

'Conditioning,' Chekov explained to himself. 'I've been conditioned to react this way.'

This still didn't make him any less embarrassed by his cowardice or ease the nagging feeling that this was the wrong explanation.

"Well," Tarell was saying defensively, "I don't like the way these Southerners break their men in. They leave them without any spirit."

"That only matters if you decide to breed with them," her sister countered. "Is that what you want to do with this one?"

"What would give you a stupid idea like that?" Tarell answered, despite the fact that at Stah's she'd given ample indication that this was her intention.

Sahshell shook her head. "I don't see how you can be so cheap. It would have only cost you a half-chip. If you end up destroying him because he's untrainable, it'll be a total loss."

"Stah didn't tell me he wasn't broken in until after I'd signed," Tarell admitted grudgingly. "I didn't trust her to do it after that. If he died or went idiot in the process, I'd still have to pay."

Her sister sighed. "So she got the better of you once more?"

Tarell hauled the ensign up by one arm, pulling him in front of her to emphasize the disparity in their relative heights. "Do you really think I'm going to have a problem with this thing?"

Sahshell smiled as she picked the barbran stick up off the desk and held it out for Chekov. "Here, offworlder. Give this stick to your owner."

The ensign clinched his fists as he shook his head, steeling himself for the blow he was ninety percent sure was to follow. "She does not own me."

Being prepared didn't make it hurt any less.

"We'll see about that," Tarell said, retrieving the stick from her sister.

"Here, darling," Sahshell said soothingly as she pried the ensign's hand away from his burning cheek. "Put your hands out. She's just going to give you a couple of raps across the palms. Now how much can that hurt?"

Although he knew this was not a good idea, Chekov felt inclined to co-operate with the Ganzarite for some reason.

"Don't interfere, Sahshell," Tarell said. "I can make him do what I want."

"I'm not interfering. I'm just helping out," her pretty sister insisted as she coaxed Chekov's curled fingers open. "See, darling, you're making Tarell mad. And you really shouldn't do that right now. You know you deserve a punishment, so just take it and don't make it any worse for yourself."

"I'm not going to let you spoil this one, Sahshell," Tarell said, then brought the stick down hard across his open palms.

It was in actuality just as the sister had said, just a rap, but Chekov almost screamed at the white hot agony that exploded in his hands. It wasn't logical. There was no way that the impact of that flimsy piece of wooden material could cause that sort of pain. However his nerve endings weren't listening to logic.

"Oh, that did smart a little, didn't it?" Tarell asked cruelly. "You see, you can't listen to Sahshell. She's a big liar. Now, you've got four more just like that one coming. Do you want them fast or slow?"

"Fast," Chekov gasped, not really pausing to consider.

"It doesn't really make any difference," Sahshell advised him as she held his hands in place.

"Two...Three...Four...Five," Tarell counted out loud, punctuating each with a excruciating blow from the stick.

"Oh, God!" Chekov cried out. He squeezed his eyes closed to staunch the flow of the involuntary tears that formed in his eyes. When Sahshell released him, he clutched his burning hands to his chest and rocked back and forth as if that could relieve their agony.

"Believe it or not, that's probably the lightest beating you'll ever get while you're here," Sahshell informed him cheerfully.

"You see, that's why she was nice to you," Tarell explained. "She just wanted to see the look on your face when she said that."

"Oh, don't listen to her," Sahshell said, handing him a cloth to wipe his face with. "I like you very much."

"I'll do that," Tarell said, whisking it from her grasp. "Come here, offworlder."

Turning obediently towards her was the furthermost thing from what Chekov wanted to do, but he felt he had very little choice. He felt terribly, terribly bad \-- guilty for having offended her and fearful of displeasing her further. He kept his eyes on the tiled floor, promising himself that he'd get out of this awful place if it was the last thing he ever did.

"Look at the way his face goes so red," Sahshell commented as her sister wiped his eyes and nose. "Is that normal?"

"Oh, yes. He's all right." Tarell tilted his head up, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "It just means he'd like very much to rebel against me but knows he can't. Isn't that right?"

Chekov lowered his eyes and remained silent, hating the part of himself that despite everything was enjoying being so close to her.

"Stah was right," she said approvingly. "You are clever. You're already learning when not to talk. Show me how smart you are and tell me what else you've learned."

Chekov would have liked to give the Ganzarite a very explicit account of the opinions he'd formed, but lacked her colorful vocabulary. "Avoid contact with metal surfaces and make no attempt to escape," he answered instead.

"Good. Now give me a kiss."

Chekov was horrified to find that that was exactly what a part of him wanted to do. It took all the effort he could muster to resist the urge.

Tarell made it harder by reaching out and tracing the line of his jaw with her finger. "You're going to find it's very dangerous to be angry with me," she whispered, as his skin tingled deliciously in the wake of her touch, "and not very pleasant. Now kiss me."

He tried to resist, but the flesh was too weak. He even tried not to enjoy the touch of her lips on his, but every nerve in his body screamed with pleasure. After she released him, he even tried to tell himself that he'd be stronger the next time, but that didn't seem at all likely.

"Much better," she said, then turned him around by the shoulders to face her sister. "Here, Sahshell. Find something for him to do in the kitchen. But don't give him anything to eat or drink."

"Why?" Sahshell asked as she reached out and took him by the hand. "Are you still punishing him?"

"No, stupid. It's because he's a fornicating alien," Tarell replied with her customary grace. "Our food might make him sick. We've got to wait until the supplies come this afternoon and I read the instructions. I'll also send out for some clothes that'll fit him and we'll see how well he washes up. And see that you keep your hands off him, Sahshell. He's mine."

Her sister pointedly released all contact as she guided Chekov to the door.

"And you, offworlder..." Chekov could almost feel the warning finger she pointed at him. "Don't you even think of trying to leave."

"Yes, ma'am," Chekov agreed reluctantly, knowing he shouldn't be thinking of anything else.

* * * ***** * * *


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 

"Any sign of them?" Kirk asked, although he could already see from Johnson's face that the answer would be negative.

The other man shook his head grimly as he closed the doors of the airy guest room Kirk had been given. "None, sir."

"Damn." Kirk chewed his thumb thoughtfully. "There's been no word from either of them in almost twenty-four hours now. Assuming maximum velocity of the native forms of conveyance to be at around twenty miles per hour, that could put them anywhere within a five hundred mile radius."

Johnson nodded. "Possibly further if they took a sea route."

"And tricorders are completely useless?"

"No, sir, not completely. Range is severely limited by the presence of ginzite, though. However we're satisfied that Lt. Commander Ghyka and Mr. Chekov are not in the city... at least not above ground."

"And below ground?"

Johnson sighed uneasily. "We simply can't be sure, sir."

Kirk frowned. The sight of Johnson didn't inspire much confidence. Although the man was undoubtedly competent, he was by far the shortest, frailest looking red shirt Kirk had ever seen. "You've got to be sure. If the tricorders don't work they way they are, find a way to modify the tricorders."

"Yes, sir."

"I'll notify the local officials that we have missing persons and request permission to beam down additional personal to extend our search beyond the city limits."

Johnson shook his head. "The Ganzarites don't usually respond favorably to those sorts of requests."

"They don't usually deal with me, Lieutenant."

Johnson allowed a small smile to crack his professional facade. "No, sir."

"Well, at least we'll get to see how special this Special Intelligence man really is," Kirk said, rubbing his hands together. "Supposedly, he's been trained to deal with situations like this."

"And Mr. Chekov, sir?"

"Chekov," Kirk concluded with a shake of his head, "is on his own."

* * * ***** * * *

'Water, water everywhere,' Chekov thought as he scrubbed his reflection in the kitchen's tiled floor, 'but not a damned drop to drink.'

"You certainly aren't much of a worker," Sahshell commented. She sat at a long table in the middle of the large, bright kitchen cutting vegetables with a ingeniously designed slicer. She was assisted by two young boys - both natives, neither over twelve. Under her instructions, they were preparing what looked to be a large meal for a number of adults. For herself, Sahshell reserved the tasks that required a minimum of effort and an maximum opportunity to stare at Chekov.

"I'm sorry," he said, putting down the spiney sponge and sitting on a dry patch of floor. "However I am very tired and very..." His mind wouldn't supply him for a Ganzarite word for 'dehydrated' so he had to settle for, "..thirsty."

"I suppose you could have a little water."

"No." He dipped the sponge back into the soapy bucket. "Tarell was right. I am an alien. A little of your water might make me very sick."

The two kitchen boys giggled and whispered to each over the boiling pots of stew they were tending.

Sahshell smiled and shook her head. "Don't call yourself that."

"Call myself what? An alien?" Chekov was puzzled when the two boys burst into laughter again. "But that's what I am."

Sahshell was laughing too. "Yes, but it's not a polite thing to say."

"But Tarell..."

"Tarell doesn't always use good language," her sister pointed out.

"Oh." Chekov turned back to his work, reflecting on the misfortune of being stranded on a planet so xenophobic the mere word "alien" was an obscenity.

"Don't get offended," Sahshell said. "It's just funny to hear someone talk that way and know they don't know what they're saying. And those two dummies will laugh at anything, won't you, boys?"

The boys giggled in reply. It sounded so much like an elder sister teasing her younger siblings, Chekov had to ask, "Are these your brothers?"

"In a way. They are brothers and they are mine." Sahshell smiled at them proudly. "Pretty, aren't they? I bought them with my inheritance money from Aunt Cilla when Tarell and I first came here to live. They were just toddlers. They're sons of one of the aunties. Not too bright, unfortunately, but they'll be marvellous to look at in a few years."

Swallowing his revulsion, Chekov strove to sound conversational as he asked, "Did you buy them from Auntie Foushe?"

"No." Sahshell cocked her head sideways. "What do you know about her?"

"I was almost.. um.." It was a terribly peculiar way to speak of oneself. "I think I was almost ... purchased by her. Does she live near here?"

"No, on the other side of town."

"In the big blue house I passed coming here?"

"No, it's a red house, but you can't see it from the street," she replied impatiently. "And you didn't see it coming here. It's in the other direction. And the Auntie wouldn't have bought you."

"I was mistaken, then." Chekov sloshed water onto the floor, happy with the amount of information he'd been able to procure so easily. "I know nothing of this place."

"She grows barbran," Sahshell's voice had taken on a suspicious tone. "She'd have nothing to do with a small one like you."

"Then they must have been talking about someone else," Chekov explained easily. "Tarell grows barbran also, doesn't she?"

"Well," Sahshell shrugged. "We grow it but it's not our real crop."

"I don't follow you." 

"We grow barbran, but we sell chustzi."

"Oh." Chekov sat back on his heels and paused to think about this. Chustzi was a mold. It had many uses, but was quite dangerous to cultivate since it could develop into a blight that would attack all surrounding crops. Periods of blight and famine plagued this area before its development by slave-holding women. He'd never seen a farm devoted to chustzi cultivation, but this probably meant it was a smaller, more profitable operation than the typical barbran plantation. Servants probably worked in large scale versions of the greenhouses he'd seen in the city rather than out in huge fields. "It's used to make medicine, isn't it?"

She looked at him blankly for a moment. "Oh, yes, we grow that kind too. But mostly we raise sleeping chustzi to sell to the offworlders."

"To the offworlders?" Chekov asked, wondering what she meant by 'sleeping' and trying to imagine what the offworlders, who more and more were seeming to be Orions, would want with a primitive mold. "What would they do with it?"

"They use it against their enemies," she answered simply. "Don't you know? It's an offworldish thing..."

"No." He frowned and immediately resolved to find out more about this mold that could be used as a weapon. "I'm not that kind of an offworlder."

A low chime sounded. It was a long bell hung beside several others near the ceiling of the far wall. It was being activated by pulls on a string that passed through the wall. Guessing from the pull cords that hung nearby, he deduced this was some sort of a crude communications system.

"Chood," Sahshell called to one of her boys. "Go answer that." She turned and smiled at Chekov. "You'll have to learn the bells. That one's for the delivery door. It's probably the things for you."

"Oh." Chekov sincerely hoped that meant he'd soon have something to drink. "About this chustzi..."

The bell rang again.

"Toz," she ordered, sending the second boy after the first. "It's definitely your things if it's going to take both the boys to bring it in."

"Yes, but about this mold you grow..."

"No reason for you to worry about it," Sahshell cut him off. "You'll be working in the house, I think. And if not, you'll be told what you need to know when you need to know it."

Chekov felt strongly that he needed to know this now. However, he could see Sahshell had little patience for questions and her interest in agricultural matters was waning. He smiled what he hoped would seem a charming smile. "I am simply curious. I know very little about your planet."

"How sweet you are." The Ganzarite woman smiled as if she didn't quite believe his act, but enjoyed it all the same. "Well, sweet one, the main thing you need to know right now is that this isn't just _my_ planet. From now on, it's your planet, too."

Despite his best efforts, Chekov's smile faded as he contemplated the potential correctness of her statement.

The bell chimed again.

"It must be a trunk," Sahshell said, rising with an irritated sigh. She crossed to the doorway, then turned back to him with an ironic smile. "Behave yourself," she cautioned, as if daring him to do otherwise.

It quickly dawned on him that for the first time since his abduction, he was being left alone in a room with an open door. "Of course," he agreed amiably.

As her footsteps echoed down the hall, he had to press his hands to his temples to still the terrible pounding there. Thoughts of escape were paired with blinding spasms of pain in his head. 'How was I able to do this before?' he asked himself as he took in a few deep breaths and tried to clear his mind. It seemed like it had been something about Lieutenant Uhura...

As he pictured her, the pain in his head eased considerably. In fact, the more fondly he thought of her, the better he felt.

'It's Ghyka she wants,' he reminded himself as he rose and moved carefully towards the door. The thought saddened him unaccountably. He shook his head to clear it from such foolishness. 'What has happened to my mind?'

The door to the exterior was propped open just far enough for him to squeeze out. Despite the fact he knew he only had seconds before Sahshell returned, he hesitated. He knew they would have some way of tracking him. It was foolhardy to try to leave before he found out more about their capability to monitor his movements.

Beyond the door lay a dirt yard surrounded by a stone wall. There were a few scattered trees and a small hut-like structure that was probably a supply storage space. Separated from the rest of the yard by a barbran stalk fence were two long, squat buildings. He couldn't make them out clearly because of the trees and the fence, but believed they might be the greenhouses. That would be worth getting a look at.

He looked down at the recently abused palms of his hands. Maybe it wasn't worth going through that again. Until he knew more about their capabilities to track him, it would probably be better for him to be content to gather information and build their trust in him. Although resolved not to make an attempt, he remained at the door looking longingly at the blue Ganzarite sky. Only a short time ago he was sitting in the Rec room having lunch with Lieutenant Uhura and Kathy Hiroto. They were probably somewhere above him right now. To be back there with them would be paradise...

"What are you doing?"

Chekov nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Tarell's harsh voice.

"Nothing," he assured her, hastily moving away from the door as the Ganzarite entered carrying a small white chest.

"No." Her voice froze him in place. "Go back to where you were."

"I was only..." 

"Shut up and do as I tell you," she ordered sharply.

He obeyed, telling himself he had no choice, but knowing that he did so because he feared this woman -- illogically and uncontrollably. He couldn't meet her eyes as she placed the small chest inside one of the cabinets then stood watching him with her arms crossed. Under her gaze he began to feel almost sick with guilt, feeling worse with every passing second.

Sahshell, carrying only a light package tied with string, came in followed by the two boys staggering under the weight of a heavy chest.

"You left him here," Tarell accused her, "by himself and with the door open."

"Oh, Tarell." Her sister sighed impatiently as she dropped her package carelessly onto the table. "It's not like he could have gotten far."

"That's not the point, though," she said as Sahshell crossed behind her and opened the big chest. "Is it?"

"I'm not your property, Tarell," the other woman reminded her, as she tossed a bottle to Chekov.

"No, _you're_ not." Tarell crossed to him and snatched the liquid from his grasp.

Although he felt himself withering under her burning gaze, Chekov forced himself to straighten. "I wasn't going anywhere."

"No, you weren't. And you aren't going anywhere. But I told you not to even think of running away. Can you look at me and tell me you weren't thinking of running away?"

It didn't seem like much of a challenge at first. It would only be a very small lie to someone he didn't like very much. But Chekov quickly found he couldn't even meet Tarell's eyes without the headaches starting again.

"That's what I thought." The Ganzarite watched him rub his eyes between his thumb and forefinger with grim satisfaction. "How many did I give him last time?"

"Five," her sister replied. "On the hands."

"Get him washed up and put into those new clothes, then send him to my study," she ordered ominously. "And remember, Sahshell, keep your hands off of him."

The sister shrugged. "He's your property."

"And you..." Tarell took Chekov's hand from his eyes and wrapped it around the bottle of liquid nutrient. "Keep your strength up."

* * * ***** * * *

"That's just not good enough!"

The woman in charge of the city's law enforcement organization looked at Kirk's fist as it landed on her desk. Then, almost involuntarily, her eyes fell to his body. She was an older woman, accustomed to dealing with male offworlders, but like the rest of the Ganzarite women, deeply indoctrinated into sexist perceptions. Kirk knew from prior experience on this planet she was probably thinking about how attractive or unattractive he was when he was angry. 

He withdrew his fist and fumed silently. It seemed like every time he took an aggressive action to make them pay serious attention to him, the less seriously he was taken.

"We have procedures," the woman said, righting a small decorative container his blow had overturned. "If you hadn't tried to ignore those procedures, we would be twenty-four hours ahead of where we are now."

"I have personnel standing by on my ship," Kirk said, switching tactics. "If you recommend it to the council, I could double your workforce..."

"Captain..." She used the same sort of tone one would use if forced to call a monkey by that title. "You are not endearing yourself to me right now."

"I don't want to endear myself to you," Kirk retorted hotly. "I want my men!"

"Do you want a treaty between your government and ours?" she countered, knowing Kirk was aware of the considerable political influence she had over certain council members. "If so, then get your loud mouth and your ugly white face out of my office."

Kirk forced himself to swallow his temper. "Look, ma'am, all I want to do is..."

However the woman had already reached behind her and pulled the cord that signalled two of her assistants to enter.

"Kirk, if your men are lost or hurt, they'll be found and returned to you within the next forty-eight hours," she assured him as the assistants closed in to escort him out. "If anything else has happened to them, then... " A sardonic smile creased the woman's face. "Well, then you can rest assured they are being looked after most carefully."

* * * ***** * * *

"Are you sure you don't need any help?"

"Quite sure." It had taken a bit of doing to convince Sahshell that he could be trusted to take a shower by himself. Chekov wasn't about to let all that effort go to waste just because he couldn't figure out how to put on these crazy Ganzarite garments. With all the mysterious sashes and slits, he didn't need help. He needed schematics.

"I can't believe you're so shy," she teased, her voice drifting though the wide crack of the slightly ajar door to the bath. "I'll see you naked sooner or later." 

"Later would be better," he muttered to himself, putting his arm though what was either a very long sleeve or a pants leg. Deciding that this sleeve was a much better candidate for a pants leg than what he was currently wearing, he untied the long sash from around his waist and started over. The base garments he was struggling with were all white -- single pieces of material shaped by sashes cut into the cloth. If Sahshell hadn't taken them away while he was in the shower, he would have put back on the clothes he'd come in. At least there he could tell the shirt from the pants by their color.

The room itself was another fine example of Ganzarite architecture. The walls were woven in blue, white and green in a pattern that suggested fish in the ocean. The plumbing fixtures, however, were anything but native. They seemed to be of an old-fashioned Centauri design, probably bought by the Orions as surplus and unloaded on these primitives at great profit. Chekov reflected that for a supposedly virgin planet, Ganzar was exhibiting some sinfully cosmopolitan tastes in technology. 

Although he had almost enough spare material left over to cover another person when he finished wrapping it around his waist, Chekov could tell from the superior fit that this piece of cloth was definitely the pants. He was dropping the shirt over his head when Sahshell entered.

Her mouth was open to make some remark, but looking at him she closed it into a smile... which turned into a giggle... which turned into a laugh.

Chekov spread his hands helplessly. "You mean to tell me this isn't right either?"

"Well..." She lifted the material around his neck. "This is the waist."

"Oh, yes, of course." He hastily pulled the garment off and turned it upside down. "I see it now. Thank you."

She shook her head as she took the material from him, folded it in half and turned it sideways. "Hold out your arms."

Chekov hoped he hadn't made a similar mistake with the pants as she slipped the material onto him like a jacket and wrapped the securing bands around his wrists. Even through the fabric, her touch tingled pleasantly against his skin.

"This.." Sahshell said, taking a tie from inside the shoulder of one sleeve and crossing his chest with it. "Is why I'd never buy an offworlder. You don't know how to do the simplest things, but you won't admit you need help."

Chekov smiled as she pulled up a high collar and wrapped a tie around it almost in the manner of a cravat. The casual contact from her felt so good it was making him feel a little light-headed. "I'm sorry. I thought I could figure it out."

"So I see." She smirked as she knelt and began to redo the fastenings on his pants legs. "Didn't you ever learn how to tie knots?"

"Not as well as you." The prospect of her hands working their way up his inseam became a little too much for him to handle. He reached down. "I'll do these myself."

She brushed his hands away with a light slap that stung cruelly despite its casual delivery. The unnaturally lingering pain temporarily counteracted the pleasure. She quickly finished with his pants, then rose and unfolded a long yellow piece of cloth.

"Can you read the printing on this?" she asked as she slipped it over his head. The overlay hung nearly to his knees. Stamped on the center of the chest in reddish ink was an elaborate symbol inside a circle.

Even upside down, Chekov could tell it was a letter from their alphabet, but the decorative curlicues made it difficult to recognize which one. "A 'B' or perhaps a 'T'?"

"It's Tarell's personal symbol," she informed him, tying a rust colored sash around his waist. "And these are our family colors."

She paused expectantly as if she anticipated some response from him. For some reason, though, he was having trouble thinking about anything other than what it would be like to have sex with her.

"Oh?" he said politely.

"Welcome to the family," she said wryly as she picked up a wide-toothed comb. She reached up to brush his hair, but this seemed to require more effort than she was willing to expend. "You're little, but you're not that little, are you? Here, sit down."

Chekov still had enough of his wits about him to realize prolonging the physical contact between them might not be as good an idea as it seemed right now. "Perhaps I should do this myself..."

"Sit!" She snapped her fingers and pointed at the stool as one would to command a family pet.

Which, Chekov thought as he rolled his eyes and obeyed, it would seem he was.

"You have such fine hair," Sahshell commented wonderingly as she raked the big comb through it. Ganzarites of this region had thick, coarse hair. "I've never seen anyone with hair like yours. It's so soft. I could just stand here and brush it all day."

Chekov hoped that she would. The contact with her hand as she smoothed his hair back was sending waves and waves of pure ecstasy down the length of his spine.

"Quit squirming!" She struck him lightly on the shoulder. "I'm not hurting you."

"No, you are not hurting me." Chekov came back to himself enough to pull away. "It's just that... that.." He could feel his face going a deeper red as he cast about for a polite way to tell her what she was doing to him. 

Sahshell put her hands on her hips. "Just what?"

Chekov cleared his throat and turned. He tried to look at her, but immediately found himself looking at body parts that weren't her face. "Tarell asked you not to touch me," he said looking safely at her feet.

"But I was barely...... Oh, I see." 

When Chekov looked up, she was, as he had feared, smiling.

"It's not about me, is it?" She devilishly reached out and twirled a damp curl at the nape of his neck around her finger. "It's about you."

Chekov wanted to pull away, but couldn't quite muster the necessary willpower. 

"It's about responsiveness." She traced her fingertip down his neck and watched a shudder of pure delight pass through him in its wake. "The conditioning makes you all this way, but some men are more responsive than others."

"Sahshell..." he protested weakly, trying to recall who he was and the sorts of things he did not do with women he'd barely met.

"You seem to be exceptionally responsive," she observed, feeling his heart beating hard against her hand as she caressed his throat. "I should have known. The ones that feel the pain the most usually also feel the pleasure more too."

Despite himself, he felt his body arching back to facilitate her touch.

"God help me," he pleaded in his native tongue, his fingers digging into the seat of the stool as her hand slid down his chest. 

Her hand stopped before it reached the destination his body was so eagerly anticipating. 

"Tarell will be pleased," she said, coolly stepping back. "This means you'll be less capable of resistance and will adapt quicker."

A small part of him was aware that neither of these were anything for him to be pleased about, but the largest part of him was too busy basking in what definitely sounded like approval from her to take much note.

"Of course," she said, taking a grip on his shoulders and gently guiding him up into a standing position, "there are a few other benefits, too."

Chekov didn't realize that he retained his tight grasp on the seat of the stool and brought it with him as he stood. Nor did he did he have any spare attention to register the way it clattered to the floor when Sahshell pulled him forward into a deep kiss and his hands left it for her body. Nothing on this world or any other was as important at this moment as his desire for this woman.

She was smiling as she pushed him back. "Put your shoes on."

"What shoes?" he asked stupidly, reaching for her again.

Her push backwards this time was rougher and she followed it up with a slap to his face that hit him like a cold bucket of water. "Put those shoes on." Her voice was firm but not angry as she snapped and pointed to the floor.

He stepped back, rubbing his stinging cheek with the back of his hand. He felt hurt, puzzled, embarrassed and a little angry all at the same time.

"I said to put those shoes on," she repeated, more emphatically this time. "Obey me, now."

Although he was still confused and upset, it seemed best to comply with her wishes. He hoped as he knelt and picked up the shoes that complying with her strange request would prove a quick and easy way back into her good graces that he had so suddenly fallen out of.

The shoes were made of cloth with hard wooden soles. They made a jingling noise as he drew them on.

"They've got little bells inside the toes," Sahshell explained. "To help us keep up with you until you decide you'd like to stay with us."

Having completed the task she requested, Chekov stood up. He took a tentative step towards her.

"No," she warned, drawing her hand back threateningly. "We can't keep Tarell waiting and as you were just reminding me, I'm supposed to keep my hands off you. Now, come with me."

As the inflated input from his senses began to ebb, his mind slowly returned to its normal functions. He followed her out the door into the hallway feeling almost as foolish as he did disappointed. A rhythmic jingle-jingle from his shoes marked the timing of his steps.

"Irritating, isn't it?" Sahshell asked. "But the way things are going, you should be out of belled shoes by the end of next week... maybe much sooner."

Within fourteen days, Chekov translated, they anticipated him to be so fully acclimatized that he would have no desire to return to his former life. When he'd first heard about the men that never returned from Ganzar, he hadn't fully believed these primitives were in command of such powers of persuasion. Now, his own crumbling self-control was powerful evidence to the contrary. 

"Sahshell," he said, thinking of the most recent demonstration of his lack of ability to govern his reactions, "I must apologize for..."

She waited for a moment, but when he seemed unable to name his crime, she shrugged. "You've just got to learn to do what I tell you to when I tell you to do it," she said, as if not immediately picking up the shoes had been the only thing he'd done wrong. The fact he'd suddenly been overcome with uncontrollable lust for her seemed to have completely escaped her attention.

"No," he said, almost choking on his own embarrassment. "I'm terribly sorry that I...I..."

As he sputtered to a halt, she looked at him as if she couldn't possibly figure out what strange, offworldish thing he could be going on about. "It's not me you need to worry about," she said, setting off down the corridor again. "I'd save my apologies for Tarell if I were you."

The thought of Tarell was not pleasant one.

"Can you cry?" Sahshell asked abruptly.

"Excuse me?"

"Some offworlders aren't able to," she said, continuing on. "A lot of men don't like to cry at first, but tears can affect her greatly sometimes. Just don't over do it. The worst thing to do is argue with Tarell. She'll beat you just for arguing. The best thing to do is confess everything, say that you're sorry, promise never to do it again then beg for forgiveness... very humbly."

The dread in Chekov's stomach brought on by these words was only intensified when he realized that they had turned into the hallway that led to the door of his Ganzarite owner's study.

"Of course in your case, the very, very best thing to do," Sahshell said, smiling as they halted in front of an unpleasantly familiar doorway, "is to get her to touch you."

Before Chekov could put his appalled reaction to this suggestion into words, Sahshell knocked at the door, opened it and thrust him inside. "Good luck, sweet one."

He turned in time to see the untouchable metal latch click into place, effectively locking him inside this room where he very much did not want to be.

"Are you going somewhere?" Tarell's voice asked from behind him.

"No," he replied very regretfully, as he slowly turned to face her.

"Then come in." She was seated behind her large desk pulling a knotted string through one hand then stamping marks onto a piece of paper. Chekov recognized the string as a method of recording numbers. Tarell was probably doing her accounting. An apparently seldom used computer sat uncovered in a small alcove to the side. "Do you read knots?" she asked without looking up.

"No, I'm afraid not." He folded his hands behind him and idly wondered how those big windows opened.

"I may decide to teach you if you show an aptitude for it.. and prove yourself trustworthy."

He gradually realized that she was catching him look for a means of escape. He returned his gaze back to a more neutral direction as casually as was possible.

"You look nice," she commented, putting aside her work and standing.

"Thank you." As much as he feared and disliked this woman, a thrill of pleasure still ran through him at receiving a word of praise from her.

She crossed to him then made a slow circle around him, examining him from every angle. 

In a way, it was a familiar unpleasantness. Chekov had always hated military inspections. He tried to stare straight ahead and endure as he'd learned to in the Academy, but didn't succeed in achieving the necessary state of blankness. The potential of failing to pass muster and getting demerits was nothing next to the possibility of failing and getting physically abused.

She lifted one sleeve and fingered the intricately tied bands fastening it in place. "Sahshell helped you with these, didn't she?" 

Chekov could feel his blush starting at his toes and working its way rapidly upwards. "Yes, ma'am," he replied, directing his answer towards the floor.

She lifted his chin with two fingers. "What else did my sister do?"

"She kissed me," he replied, glad that she given him the opportunity to state his confession in a way that did not directly implicate him.

His chin was lifted a little higher. "Is that all that happened?"

"Yes."

She struck him lightly on the backside in a manner that was more demeaning than it was painful. "Don't kiss Sahshell," she warned. She didn't seem at all angry, though, or even annoyed. "I know how my sister is, but I hold you responsible for your own conduct... which could probably stand to be a little more modest. Don't smile at her so much or encourage her in any way. If I come in some day and find her with your..." Tarell suggested an unlikely sexual situation in terms so crude they were almost incomprehensible. The Ganzarites had a way of linguistically demeaning things that were uniquely male that was almost without equal in the galaxy. "... then it's you I'll blame."

Chekov was shocked speechless. He found himself in complete agreement with what the fat woman who had sold him to her had said; Tarell was certainly no lady.

"Do you understand?"

He closed his mouth and nodded. He had definitely got the gist of her message. He might not agree with it and its ideological implications, or even believe that anyone would ever have a reason to say such a thing to him, but he had taken her meaning quite plainly.

"Good, now come over here." She crossed to the computer. "Can you operate this?"

"I believe so," he said confidently. The terminal was an old piece of refurbished junk. Obviously Andorian Science Corps surplus. The technology was at least seventy-five years out of date. 

She stepped aside. "Then turn it on."

As he sat down in front of the terminal, he got the feeling that he was being tricked. Unfortunately, he didn't figure out what the trick was until he touched the activation button and spear of burning pain shot up his arm. "Ow!"

"Metal," Tarell explained belatedly as he put his stinging fingers in his mouth. "I guess you forgot about that."

"I didn't think of it being made of metal." Chekov tried shaking his fingers. "This means I cannot operate the input board either."

"No, I've had it coated with a special offworldish material." When she saw the puzzled look on his face, she cautioned, "Don't think about it too deeply. Just think of it as magic."

Chekov tested the keyboard gingerly. Without thinking about it too deeply, he could tell it was covered in a thin layer of rubbery material. However when he began to speculate on what this could mean about the nature of the thing that was scrambling the input from his sense of touch, the headaches started again.

"I told you not to think about it too deeply," Tarell scolded.

"It is very difficult to control thoughts that occur to me spontaneously," he said, holding his head in his hands.

"No, it's not," she retorted unsympathetically. "You simply aren't used to disciplining your thoughts along our guidelines. In a very short time, your mind will learn to avoid thoughts that aren't safe. Once you cease to rebel, such thoughts won't even occur to you 'spontaneously'... As a matter of fact, I seem to remember that you're here to receive a little help in just that area."

"Tarell," he said as she crossed to her desk. "Do you intend to strike me again?"

" _Strike_ you?"

The Ganzarite word had a meaning closer to 'slap' or 'punch', but it was the only term Chekov could think of for violent physical contact that did not carry connotations of deserved punishment.

He gestured at his palms. "As you did before."

"Oh, then yes." She pulled the same instrument of torture she'd used previously from beneath her desk. "I intend to 'strike' you quite soundly. Do you have anything to say about it?"

Bearing in mind Sahshell's advise, he rose and took a deep breath. "I... I admit to having had thoughts of leaving. However, I am... most regretful that I did so and ... request that you... overlook this particular instance."

Tarell crossed her arms. "So, Sahshell told you to apologize?"

"What makes you assume that?"

"Because you did it very badly. You aren't sorry you were thinking about escaping. You don't even think you can control what you think. The only thing you're really sorry about is that you can't escape. You just don't want another beating."

It was impossible to deny the truth of any of this. "It is terribly painful," he said, hoping to play on any shred of human decency.

Not being human, she had none. "It's supposed to be painful, you idiot alien. I'm teaching you to avoid things."

"There must be another way, though," he said, fearing that he was coming perilously close to something that could be construed as arguing. "Surely it is not necessary to resort to violence."

"So what else?" She moved in towards him with a half-smile. "Would you like to... appease me? You're welcome to try." 

This seemed to be an open invitation to commence with Sahshell's Plan B. Looking at Tarell, Chekov had no doubt that if he moved forward and into her arms, he would at least have to opportunity to delay his punishment for a while.

He laughed nervously as he inched backwards. "That's not exactly what I had in mind. I thought we could discuss the situation rationally and come up with a civilized solution that..."

"You know, offworlder..." Chekov knew that somewhere within those words he'd made a very big mistake as soon as Tarell stepped forward and grabbed a handful of the material of the right shoulder of his garment. "...That's what I don't like about you. You're always so civilized and polite. And although you're an ignorant piece of worthless alien refuse who I bought for less than I'd pay for a good load of manure, you seem to think you're better than I am, smarter than I am, more civilized than I am... just like all those other offworld, male-body-parts-for-brains, fornicating aliens who come here to do business with me thinking I'm going to fall down and kiss their reproductive organs."

"I..I.." Chekov tried to apologize, but in the face of her anger, it was hard to get his mouth to work correctly.

"So you want me to be rational, huh?" She shook him sharply. "Like these slope-headed, idiot-bearing, brother-fornicating Southern ladies here who get together at their planters' dinners and harvest committee meetings and rationally plan how to keep barbarians like me out of their little circle? Is that what you want? For me to be rational and civilized and polite?"

Backed up to the wall, Chekov's only avenue of escape was to squeeze his eyes closed and hope one of the three options would appeal to her.

"Well, I might be a Northern barbarian," she said from between her teeth. "But I'm the Northern barbarian that owns you, laddie. And although I can't do anything to all those smart-assed offworld business men and all those self-satisfied Southern ladies, I can most certainly do this to you..."

She grabbed him by the collar and steered him over in front of the computer terminal. Forcing his head forward, she bent him over and held him in place with a firm hand to the small of his back.

It seemed a crowning irony to him that his nose was just inches away from the keyboard of a computer -- a virtual symbol of the current state of advancement of the civilization he came from -- while he was about to receive treatment that an adult man from the Dark Ages would find singularly unrefined...

It also occurred to him that if Tarell kept her hand on his back like that much longer, he might be willing to give Plan B another shot...

Just when he was beginning to think that he was having a terribly long time to think of such things, Tarell pulled him back up to standing.

"But I won't do that to you," she said, turning him around to face her and jerking his right hand forward. "Because even though I might not like your offworldish niceness, I'm going to use it. I'm going to learn to deal with it..."

Chekov gasped as she brought the stick down hard across his palm.

"...with out losing my temper..."

He couldn't help but cry out at the terrible impact of the second blow and struggle futilely to pull away.

"...accomplishing what I intend to do..." she continued, jerking him back into place and bringing the stick down again. "...calmly and, as you say..."

As the stick landed again, Chekov was really beginning to hate the Ganzarite's fondness for long compound sentences.

"...rationally." After one last excruciating blow, she released him. "Now, do you think that if I tell you not to think about running away you can do it?"

Chekov opened his mouth out of a strange compulsion to obey her, but couldn't give an appropriate answer. To say yes would be an outright lie and saying no would doubtlessly inspire a continuation of Tarell's tutorial.

"Hmmm?"

"When you mistreat me this way," he said, deciding to be honest reguardless of the consequences, "it is difficult not to think that it would be much pleasanter to be elsewhere."

"I'm not mistreating you!" She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "I'm being very patient and understanding! Don't you understand?"

Chekov remained silent and let the physical evidence to the contrary speak for itself.

Tarell released him abruptly. "Go sit down," she said pointing to a group of chairs on the opposite side of the room.

Glad to put some distance between the two of them, he crossed to the chairs. As he did so, he noticed for the first time a covered tray sitting on a low table beside one of the chairs.

"On the floor, you idiot," Tarell corrected irritably as he started to take one of the chairs.

Chekov was getting very tired of being called an idiot by this woman -- this _alien_ , as he was beginning to rudely think of her, but prudently refrained from saying so as he seated himself cross-legged on the tiles.

Frowning, Tarell sat down in the chair by the low table. She uncovered the tray, revealing a small bowl of white cubes of gelatinous material. "Come here," she ordered, holding one out for him.

Chekov remained stubbornly motionless. "I'm not particularly hungry just at this moment."

Tarell's eyes narrowed dangerously. Setting her mouth in a hard firm line, she reached out, grabbed a handful of his hair and dragged him forward. She forced his mouth open, shoved the cube inside, and then held a hand over his mouth and nose until he'd swallowed it. "How was that?"

Chekov recognized the cube as oloiv, an Aldebaran dish with a long shelf life that was as high in nutrients as it was low in taste. "Delicious," he replied dryly.

"Then you'll want another," she replied in kind.

Faced with the unpleasant alternative, he opened his mouth and unresistingly allowed her to feed him the next one...and the next one... and the next one... and the next one.

"Get up on your knees," Tarell said, tiring of reaching down. "You can put your hand on my leg to balance."

Chekov did as she asked, but grasped the leg of the chair to steady himself instead.

Tarell looked at his hand critically as she fed him the next cube. "You're going to have to touch me sooner or later, you know."

Chekov concentrated on forcing another mouthful of the bland substance down his tight throat and made no reply.

She took his hand and placed it on her thigh. "See," she said, rubbing his hand back and forth against the thin material of her garment. "It feels good, doesn't it?"

Feeling a irrepressible heat rising within him, he cleared his throat and tried to pull away.

The Ganzarite laughed at the ineffectiveness of his half-hearted gesture. "Come on, my little alien," she said, smiling as she put his other hand on her shoulder. "Learn how to take a privilege when it's offered to you."

He tried to make his mind blank, but something was filling it with images of compelling sensuality.

"Let's see just how much of an act all your fornicating properness is," she said, pulling up her garment and placing his hand against the bare flesh of her leg.

Within seconds his other hand slid to her breast of its own accord.

"I'm sorry," he said, shocked by his forwardness, surprised by his powerful desire for this woman he thoroughly detested and horrified by his inability to stop fondling her. "I seem to be losing control..."

"Oh, control is very important, offworlder," Tarell said, gently pushing him down and onto his back. She smiled as she easily moved on top of him and began to unfasten his clothes. "Let me teach you a little something about control..."

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

# Chapter Three

 

                "We've determined that they're not being held in the underground tunnels beneath the city, sir,"  Johnson reported quietly after first making a visual sweep of Kirk's quarters in the Hikasha Municipal Complex.

 

                Kirk looked up from the scrawl- and slash-marked draft of the trade agreement he was studying.  "Underground tunnels?"

 

                "Yes, sir.  That's the bad news, sir.  There was a reason why the Ganzarites didn't want us snooping around down there.  The ganzite buildup isn't natural.  It's deliberate shielding.  There's a fully developed network of Deltan tunnelcars down there."

 

                "That's impossible.  The Ganzarites aren't capable of anything like tunnelcars.  They barely have the construction skills needed to make the tunnels."

 

                "I didn't say _like_ tunnelcars, sir.  They _are_ Deltan tunnelcars."

 

                Kirk paused as the implication sunk in.  "So Special Intelligence's suspicions were correct.  There's interference with this culture by a superior culture on a massive scale."

 

                "I would say so, sir."

 

                "It would seem you've simplified Commander Ghyka's job, Lieutenant.  I'm sure if we ever find him, he'll thank you."

 

                Johnson shook his head.  "That's the problem, sir.  Knowing that their captors could have used tunnelcars to transport the Commander and Ensign Chekov increases our search zone exponentially.  By now they could almost be anywhere on this planet."

 

                "You've not been able to pick up any leads of any kind?"

 

                "No, sir.  We can't exactly blend in and pass for locals.  And we're increasingly being watched and followed by the local security forces."

 

                "Damn."

 

                "We're going to have to find some way to gain the confidence of a local source of information.  If we just knew which general area of which continent to search..."

 

                "All right, Lieutenant." Kirk grimaced as the easiest and most obvious way to cultivate a local source occurred to him.  "I'll see what I can do."

 

                "Sir?"

 

                "Don't ask," Kirk warned him.  "Just don't ask."

 

 

* * *      *****      * * *

 

 

                Jingle. Jingle. Jingle. Jingle. 

 

                The happy sound of the little bells inside Chekov's shoes rang out in contrast to his bleak state of mind as he walked down the hallway between Tarell's office and the kitchen... Well, perhaps "bleak" was putting it too strongly. "Numbed" was more accurate.  He felt like he was coming out from under a heavy stun.  He was just aware enough of his surroundings to be slightly irritated by them, like a sleeper who is suddenly roused and forced to perform some task.  He wanted nothing more than to go back to Tarell and the blissful state of nearly-mindless euphoria he'd been luxuriating in.  It didn't occur to him to turn and go back until after he'd reached the kitchen door.  By then, though, Sahshell had caught sight and sound of him, so it was much too late.  There were no signs of the large meal that they had been preparing.  Everything was neatly in its place.  Sahshell sat at the table leisurely pulling stems off a bowl full of a dark purple fruit.  Her boys were asleep in each other's arms on a pallet in the corner.

 

                "So," she said, smiling as she pushed his bucket of soapy water out from under the table with her foot,  "she's had you already?"

 

                Chekov chose to interpret the question as rhetorical as he picked up the bucket and carried it over to the spot where he'd left off.

 

                "Aren't you able to answer?"

 

                "I am able to answer," he said as he knelt down by the bucket.  Still feeling irritable, he then unwisely continued, "I simply do not believe that such matters are any concern of yours."

 

                Sahshell sighed.  "Come here."

 

                He obeyed her almost automatically, only retaining enough self-possession to halt a little more than an arm's length away.

 

                She reached out and grasping the loose fabric of one sleeve pulled him forward far enough so she could slap him without going to too much effort.  "Don't talk back to me."

 

                "Yes, ma'am."  Chekov dropped his gaze to the floor, but he was almost grateful for the stinging pain in his cheek.  It seemed to bring him back to reality... such as reality was.

 

                "So, as I was saying,"  Sahshell said as she untied his sleeves and rolled them up to his elbows, "she had sex with you?"

 

                "Yes," he admitted quietly to his toes.

 

                "On the floor of her study?"

 

                He was too embarrassed to even have her fingers in his line of sight, so he turned his head towards the bowl of fruit as he answered, "Yes."

 

                "Did she enjoy it?"

 

                Chekov took refuge inaudibility.

 

                "What?"  Sahshell's voice held only the smallest promise of violence to come.

 

                That was enough.

 

                Chekov cleared his throat.  "I said that she seemed to."

 

                "Did you enjoy it?"

 

                That was a question of almost philosophic complexity. The sex, like all other aspects of his new life on this planet, had to be done according to Tarell's specifications.  Using a very effective system of punishment and rewards, she rapidly taught him how to have sex as a submissively passive participant -- more passive and submissive, in fact, than seemed natural or was entirely pleasant.

 

                On the other hand, however, he had experienced a level of pure physical ecstasy that he did not previously believe was humanly possible.  Whatever they had done to him had made him capable of sustaining levels of arousal of incredible duration and frightening intensity.  Despite his mental discomfort, his owner was able to play his body like a fiddle... and successfully demand a shocking number of encores.

 

                "I seemed to," he replied less than enthusiastically.

 

                Sahshell shook her head as she untied the sash from around his waist.  "And you're still determined to try to rebel?"

 

                "I do not belong here," he insisted stubbornly.  His statement functioned as much of a reminder to himself as it was to her.  Although it scarcely seemed physically possible after what he'd been through, he could feel himself beginning to respond to the pleasurable sensation of Sahshell's hands on him.  More than fearing the punishment that would come if he tried to pull away, he found himself reluctant to interrupt the pleasing stimulation.

 

                Even more troubling, he found that a part of himself that had previously only hated and feared Tarell now was complicated by the stirrings of a new emotion... something that felt disgustingly like love... No, not love.  Lust?  Lust would have been more reasonable, but there was something else there too... a growing feeling of loyalty, a growing fascination. 

 

                Chekov closed his eyes and shook his head.  "I don't belong here," he repeated.

 

                "You may not have been born to this life," Sahshell said, pulling his overlay off over his head,  "but soon you'll be spoiled for anything else."

 

                Her prediction seemed frighteningly possible.  It felt almost as if he were developing an addiction to these heartless Ganzarite women.  All his attempts at resistance melted in their presence.

 

                As Sahshell dropped a grease-stained apron over his head to replace the overlay, he stubbed the toe of his shoe against the floor like an unhappy child.  Tiny bells rang merrily.

 

                "I do not understand the function of these... stupid things," he said, venting his frustration at his noisy shoes in the strongest language he could muster on short notice.  "Not at all an effective aid to surveillance."

 

                "What do you mean by that?"  Sahshell said, tying the apron in place.

 

                "They indicate my presence only while I wear them.  Nothing prevents me from removing them should I wish to elude detection."

 

                Sahshell frowned.  "Do what?"

 

                "Hide," Chekov supplied, disappointed that it seemed he couldn't make use of the few sophisticated terms he knew in this language.

 

                Sahshell smiled and shook her head.  "Hiding or taking off your shoes without permission are not things I recommend you try if you're fond of keeping a whole skin on your back."

 

                "Because you have much more sophisticated means of surveillance at your disposal?"  Chekov was eager to have his suspicions confirmed, eager to affirm that there was a good reason why he should have delayed a real attempt at escape for this long.

 

                She gave him a disapproving look.  "Do you really think that's a proper question for you to be asking me?"

 

                Despite the fact that it seemed like a perfectly appropriate and very pertinent issue for him to raise, he found he could not meet her gaze.  "I apologize, however..."

 

                "No `howevers' to it," she cut him off, sounding very much like her sister.  "You're not to be concerned with such things.  All you need to know about belled shoes is this:  they're a reminder.  As long as you wear them, you'll know that we know you're still trying to rebel, still refusing to adjust.  Tarell will take them off when she feels you've adopted the correct attitude towards staying here.  Until then, the bells are a reminder that you are being displeasing... or at least not completely pleasing."

 

                The very sound of the word "displeasing" caused a tiny shudder of pain to run down Chekov's spine.  He noticed that this word and the word "disobey" both seemed have a palpable physical impact on him.

 

                Softening a little, Sahshell reached out and brushed the hair out of his eyes.  "The bells also are to remind those of us that don't own you that you aren't available."

 

                Chekov blinked.  "Available for what?"

 

                Sahshell grinned.  "What do you think?"

 

                His research told him that Ganzarite women of this region thought nothing of sharing the sexual favors of their many mates with friends and relatives, but this didn't stop him from stammering,  "Bu.. bu.. but Tarell wouldn't permit anyone else to... to.. have that sort of access to me, would she?"

 

                Her sister shrugged.  "We'll see."

 

                "Well," he said, trying to master his panic.  "I doubt there would be much demand at any rate."

 

                "It is true that you're a white-faced offworld dwarf," Sahshell conceded frankly.  "But on the other hand, you're also a hot-blooded little..."

 

                She finished with an idiomatic Ganzarite term that had no direct translation into Standard.  The word was a very condescending and mildly derogative appellation for a male who had no control over his sex drive.  As close as Chekov could figure he'd just been called something between a tramp and a slut.  "Excuse me?"

 

                She laughed.  "Don't tell me you've never been called that before."

 

                "I think I can state with a high degree of confidence that this is the first time," Chekov assured her.

 

                She shrugged.  "I'd say you'd better get used to it then."

 

                "Surely it is a considerable overstatement," he protested indignantly.

 

                "If I owned you," Sahshell purred as she walked her fingers towards him along the edge of the table, "it's what I'd _name_ you."

 

                "I am very glad you do not own me, then," Chekov said, stepping nimbly out of her reach.

 

                "Why's that?"

 

                From the awful sensation that ran down the length of his body at the sound of her voice, Chekov knew that his owner had entered the room.  Without turning to confirm, he glued his eyes on the floor and willed himself to become invisible.  Hot waves of shame alternated inside him with cold tremors of fear.

 

                "The offworlder and I were arguing about whether or not he's a..."  Sahshell, unaffected by the entrance of his tormentor, repeated her untranslatable slur against him.

 

                He could feel the monster draw a step nearer to him. 

 

                "You don't think he is?"  Tarell asked.

 

                " _He_ doesn't think he is," her sister answered, sitting down in front of her bowl of berries again.

 

                Tarell patted him lightly on the shoulder.  "Then he's not been being very observant," she said dryly.

 

                He could feel the impression her hand linger as if it had been burned into his skin.  It was all he could do to stop himself from falling to his knees in front of her.

 

                "Take a seat," she ordered him, pulling one of the long benches out.

 

                He obeyed as if he were on strings.

 

                "You've got to learn not to argue with your betters, laddie," she warned as she crossed the kitchen and removed the white chest from a high shelf.  "Especially when you're wrong."

 

                Chekov cleared his throat and tried to get a grip on his emotions.  "That is what I was objecting to," he replied, although he was still not brave enough to meet her eyes,  "the implication that I am somehow inferior because of my sex."

 

                "Not just because of your sex,"  Sahshell corrected, popping a berry into her mouth.  "Because of your sexuality."

 

                "Sex is the basic power relationship," her sister concurred as she sat down at the table next to him with the white chest.  "Since you've lost control over who you desire and when, you have reduced power.  You are therefore inferior to those who have superior control."

 

                "Since this is not a natural condition, that is a rather unfair way of looking at things," he countered, as she removed what looked like a large glove made of hard plastic from the chest.

 

                When she clamped it to the table next to him, Chekov recognized the device as an old Vegan medical monitor.  He could even see where it had been converted to accommodate five human fingers instead of four Vegan ones.

 

                "Put your hand in there," she ordered, taking out an instruction manual.  "What difference does it make if it's natural or not?  Most women are naturally smaller than men.  Does that make it fair that in tribes in the far North men dominate women merely because they're larger?  Fairness doesn't come into it.  You just have to take advantage of what you can when you can."

 

                "It isn't necessary or advantageous for one sex to dominate another for any reason," he said, hoping that none of the parts hugging his fingers would turn out to be made of metal.

 

                "I suppose you're going to tell us that's not the way things are in the offworld?"  Sahshell said.

 

                "Both sexes cooperate for the common good of all."

 

                The sisters looked at each other and laughed.

 

                "So, the males dominate," Tarell concluded.

 

                "No, not at all," Chekov insisted.

 

                "Who owns the land?"  Sahshell asked.

 

                "Individuals -- male or female -- can own property, but a great deal of land is controlled by the government."

 

                "Which is run by?"

 

                "Well," he admitted grudgingly,  "The head of the government does happen to be a male at this particular time, however..."

 

                "You had a leader in the offworld, didn't you?"  Tarell interrupted.

 

                "Purely by coincidence, he also happens to be a man, but.."

 

                "I'll bet your offworldish name indicates who your father is, doesn't it?"  Sahshell speculated.

 

                It was impossible to deny that Russian names gave rather ample indication of paternal descent.  "Yes."

 

                "Does it also say who your mother was?"

 

                "No, but that's a custom peculiar to..."

 

                "If someone says you do something like a woman, is that a compliment?"  Tarell put in.

 

                Chekov cleared his throat.  "Admittedly there are still remnants of less enlightened times, however..."

 

                "...However now you have given the women enough trivial privileges, they no longer complain,"  Sahshell concluded.

 

                "That's not the situation..."

 

                His rebuttal was interrupted by a high pitched beep.

 

                "What was that?"  Tarell asked, frantically flipping through her manual.

 

                "It means the vital sign readings are complete," he replied, pointing out the display on the side.  "Here is blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature..."  He stopped and withdrew his hand as her eyes narrowed over the top of the manual.

 

                "No need for you to show off how clever you are, alien," she said icily.  "I can figure this thing out myself."

 

                "Yes, ma'am," he said respectfully, remembering that this discussion on dominance was not taking place on a purely theoretical level.  "Of course."

 

                "Since you're a male, of course you don't think males dominate," Sahshell said as her sister recorded the monitor's readouts by making knots in a long string.  "That's just a measure of how secure you are in your dominance.  The women here think they are so liberal with their men that they are practically like free men."

 

                Tarell snorted.  "They don't know the first thing about free men."

 

                "But the men here are no less servants than the men where we come from are."

 

                "I gather that methods of controlling men are stricter in the North?"  Chekov asked Sahshell.

 

                "Things are more out in the open," Tarell answered for her.  "You see, we lived near enough to free men to know them for what they are.  We know how to break them... and why they need to be broken."

 

                A deaf man would have been able to correctly identify her statement as a threat.

 

                "A man must either dominate or be dominated," Sahshell said.  "It's just the sort of creature he is."

 

                "It's not the sort of creature I am," Chekov said, mostly to himself.

 

                "All you need to know is that you're the sort of creature who belongs to me," Tarell said, taking two pills out of a dispenser in the chest.  "Now, take your hand out of that thing and open your mouth."

 

                He didn't have any problem removing his hand from the monitor, but when he opened his mouth to take the pills, the words, "What are those for?"  came out almost of their own accord.

 

                "To make you ask stupid fornicating questions," Tarell retorted sarcastically, popping them into his mouth and following with a bottle of water for him to drink.  "Actually," she said, marking the dose off on a chart and getting another set of pills from the chest,  "they're to make your body get used to the mineral content in our water so I don't have to spend a fortune on bottled water for you.  Open."

 

                Chekov removed the bottle and opened his mouth to receive the next set of pills... and the next... and the next ... and the next.

 

                "That is quite a lot of medicine," he said, coming as close as he dared to a complaint.

 

                "Be glad you're not paying for it, laddie," Tarell agreed, finishing the round off with a couple of those little yellow pills she and the woman who sold him had discussed.  "Though I suppose you could say that I do expect you to work the cost off for me."

 

                "What are you going to do with him now?"  Sahshell said, putting voice to the question whose answer Chekov feared.

 

                Tarell consulted her manual and lists.  "I think he should be put down to sleep for a while... It's hard to tell from these charts."

 

                "You could just ask if I am tired," Chekov muttered quietly.

 

                Not too quietly to escape Tarell's notice, though.

 

                "One more smart-assed remark out of you..."  she threatened, shaking a finger in his face.  She then caught herself and made a visible effort to control her temper.  "Sahshell, get your boys up so I can have him use that mat."

 

                "Chood, Toz,"  Sahshell called, sounding disappointed that the confrontation had de-escalated.  "Get up, boys."

 

                "Take that apron off," Tarell ordered as Sahshell's brothers groggily struggled to their feet without complaint.

 

                He fumbled with the complicated knots a few moments before she brushed his fingers away.

 

                "Until you learn knots," she said, loosening the ties with practiced ease,  "you've got to learn to politely and respectfully ask for help."

 

                "I thought I could do it myself."

 

                "Well, you can't,"  she replied curtly, then nodded towards the vacated pallet.  "See, you don't know everything.  Now, go on."

 

                He got up and walked over to the corner.  Sahshell's boys, without waiting for instructions, were already in the process of beginning the preparations for the next meal.  Chekov looked down at the double indentation they'd left in the thin stuffed mattress.  The medication was already increasing his well-earned weariness, but it was degrading to be ordered to take a nap like a toddler.

 

                "Lie down, stupid," Tarell ordered, taking any other option away from him.

 

                The pallet was firm and reasonably comfortable underneath his back.  He folded his hands across his chest and put one knee up... At least he could look like an adult as he took his enforced rest.

 

                Tarell put the white chest back in its resting place then crossed to him.  When she touched his raised knee, he lowered it to the pallet.  To a casual observer, the interaction would simply look like another trivial exercise of dominance on her part.  However their motions echoed ones that had taken place previously in a way that made the gesture clearly read as one of sexual submission on his part.  The expression on Tarell's face clearly indicated she was pleased.  Since Chekov's feelings were much more ambiguous, he took refuge in turning his face towards the wall.

 

                "If you can't sleep, I can give you something to make you sleep,"  she offered.

 

                "No, that won't be..."  He caught himself just in time.  "I mean, no, thank you."

 

                "All right,"  she said, then smiled.  "Dream of me."

 

                "I don't see how I can avoid it,"  he said to the wall as he closed his eyes.

 

                He found he was very tired.  Something she'd given him must be making him drowsy.  The sounds of the boys banging pots and pans almost covered up the sound of Sahshell's voice as she asked,  "Is this one going to be trouble?"

 

                "No."  From the sound of it, Tarell had returned to sit next to her sister.  "He's too eager to please.  He may rebel for a few days, may pine for his life in the offworld for a long while, but he won't try to leave.  He's too just too much of a..."

 

                Sahshell laughed at her sister's use of the term Chekov had found so objectionable.  "So the sex was all right?"

 

                "He was a little stubborn at first, but he's as willing as they come.  His body's not bad for an alien."

 

                "Not like that one we had a long time ago."

 

                Tarell laughed.  "No, not at all."

 

                "I've always liked men who were more my size."  Sahshell's comment carried an ill-concealed complaint.

 

                "I know... And you know that I'll share this one with you after I get him broken in,"  Tarell promised with sisterly generosity.

 

                There was a pause.

 

                "Is he white all over?"  Sahshell asked after a moment.

 

                "Not _all_ over... That's the one thing I just can't get used to.  He's so white..."

 

                "Don't the offworlders have some way of changing that?"

 

                "It seems like they would.  I'll ask..."

 

                Chekov drifted off to sleep dreaming of himself as a black man with skin darker than Commander Ghyka's.

 

* * *      *****      * * *

 

                "Bad news, Kirk,"  the head of security said as soon as he stepped into her office.  "Your men are dead.  They washed up on the bank of a river outside of town."

 

                Despite the fact that he expected the Ganzarites to try to fake the deaths of the two missing men, the captain felt a cold lump settle in his stomach.  "Where are the bodies?"

 

                "We had to dispose of them."  The security chief gestured to an aide who brought forward two bags.  "They were already decomposing and we don't have sanitary facilities for transporting and storing alien corpses."

 

                "If you'd contacted me or one of my officers..."

 

                "We brought you their clothes, though," the security chief interrupted impatiently.  "And samples of their skin.  We've been told you can identify them that way."

 

                The assistant handed him the two bags.  Inside the top of the first was a yellow tunic with an Enterprise insignia on it.  It was still damp and stank of the river bed it had reportedly been fished out of.  "What's this slit in the back?"

 

                "It's where we cut it off the body."  The assistant took the shirt and spread it out on the back of a chair.  "Do you see this small hole near the shoulder?  It's probably from a dart tipped with some drug that either killed him or knocked him out.  Weights were tied around the arms and legs.  Then he was thrown into the river.  This little one probably died pretty easily.  The bigger one's clothing is torn.  He must have put up a fight."

 

                Out of the bag, Kirk pulled a jar.  Inside it floated a small piece of whitened flesh suspended in some sort of liquid.  It chilled him to think that this might be the last he'd ever see of the young navigator whether he was now dead or alive.  "Any clues to who might have wanted to do this?"

 

                "As you know, there is a faction of radical isolationists in the city," the security chief replied, folding her fingers over her desktop.  "We have reason to believe they may be involved."

 

                "What reasons...?"

 

                "We aren't prepared to discuss our ongoing investigation with you at this point.  When we come up with a culprit, you'll be notified.  But until then..."  The chief motioned to her assistant to show him to the door.  "...I think your business with this office is concluded."

 

                "Yes."  Kirk collected the tunic, then dropped it and the tissue sample into the bag he'd been given.  "I think so too."

 

* * *      *****      * * *

 

                "Wha' be dis?"

 

                Chekov awoke to find himself staring at a huge pair of light brown feet in ragged sandals.  He got all the way to the Ganzarite man's knees before he realized he wasn't in his cabin on the _Enterprise_.

 

                "Sa'shell."  The stranger's pronunciation was odd.  "Wha' be dis t'ing?"

 

                "I don't know, Tirst."  Sahshell's voice over the sound of banging pots and pans brought the whole terrible situation back to the ensign.  "It looks to me like it's your replacement."

 

                Tarell's former favorite was more the type one would expect to find in the sort of bondage fantasy Chekov found himself stuck in.  The Ganzarite was over six feet tall and generously muscled.  His features were hard and striking.  His long black hair was braided in tiny rows that joined into a single braid and hung down his back.  He was dressed in a plain costume like the one Chekov had been sold in.

 

                "It won' be much in d' field," he commented critically, prodding the ensign with his toe.  Tirst's enunciation was very nasal -- almost like a French accent from Old Earth.

 

                "Oh, I doubt that he'll be replacing you in the field."  Sahshell wandered into view, smiling.  "Are you awake, precious?"

 

                As little as he liked to acknowledge being addressed as "precious", Chekov felt obligated to nod as he sat up.

 

                She held out a hand to help him up.  "Then come meet your new brothers."

 

                Even the word "brother" carried unfavorable connotations in this language.  Chekov was only inches from taking her hand when he remembered what skin-to-skin contact did to him.

 

                "I forgot,"  Sahshell said, with a laugh that put that statement into doubt.  "He's a little sensitive.  Help him up, Tirst."

 

                The male Ganzarite's touch had no unusual effect on the ensign.  Chekov was also glad that he wasn't being made to feel the disapproval that showed strongly in the Northerner's teal-colored eyes.  

 

                "Does it talk?"  his rival asked disdainfully.

 

                Chekov straightened his clothes.  "I am not an 'it'."

 

                "It occasionally says things like that," Sahshell informed her fellow Ganzarite.  Beyond her, Chekov could see several other males were seated at the long table.  They looked up from their meals with the sort of dull curiosity a herd of cattle might display.  "Usually it's thinking about places it would rather be and trying to figure out how it ever managed to end up here.  Isn't that right, sweet one?"

 

                "How long was I asleep?"  Chekov looked out a window and tried to judge the change in the angle of the sun.

 

                "Now, that's no way to be," she scolded as she took a handful of the material over his shoulder and drug him forward towards the cooking area.  "You've got to learn to speak more respectfully to me.  Even though I don't own you, your tone should always show that you know that you're property and I'm free.  You should always be very careful to behave well towards me.  Remember that someday you might end up like poor old Tirst here -- not Tarell's favorite anymore, wondering what's going to happen to him, thinking about all those times he should have been nicer, spoken softer to me..."

 

                The big Northerner snorted at this as he took a seat at the foot of the table.

 

                "...Then again, it's more entertaining for me to watch the two of you learn things the hard way."  Sahshell placed Chekov in front of a large wooden tub filled with food-stained crockery.  "Since you can't eat with the others, you can start washing.  You do know how to wash, don't you?"

 

                "Well..."  Chekov looked for something that looked like it might contain water.  "I suppose so..."

 

                She laughed at him as she took the covers off two smaller buckets of water on either side of the tub.  "Why don't you go ahead and say, 'No, Sahshell, I don't know how to do anything useful'?"

 

                Although it was beginning to feel as though that were true, the ensign cleared his throat with all the dignity he could muster.  "I think I can manage."

 

                "Oh, I'm sure you think you can manage."  Sahshell pulled him backwards and dropped an apron over his head.  "Just like Tarell thinks she can figure out machines.  They make quite a pair, don't they, Tirst?"

 

                "Wha' she want wit a lil' white runt like tha'?"  The Northerner asked unsmilingly.

 

                "I was hoping you could help me figure that out, Tirst."  Sahshell said, tying the apron around Chekov's waist.  "You're not exactly anyone's ideal of the perfect servant, but my sister does seem remarkably fond of you.  She's threatened to get replace you for years now... for so long, we'd all stopped taking her seriously, hadn't we?"

 

                "He won' last," the big man predicted grimly.

 

                "No, not if you have anything to do with it."  Sahshell demonstrated the proper method of "washing" for Chekov.  First the clay platter was dipped in the bucket to the right.  Next it was scrubbed with a sponge.  It was then dunked in the right hand bucket again, then rinsed with water ladled with from the left hand bucket.  Finally the dish was hung to dry on one of the hooks above the tub.  Each piece of crockery had a tiny handle incorporated into its design for just that purpose.  "Do you see?"

 

                The ensign nodded as he accepted the sponge from her.

 

                "Be careful of the metal things," she reminded him, right after he'd accidentally touched one.  "I'll let you leave them for someone else."

 

                "Thank you," he said dryly, shaking the stinging out of his hand.

 

                "What's the matter, Tirst?"  Sahshell walked over to the table and looked over the big man's shoulder at his empty plate.  "Losing your appetite?  Does that mean you're beginning to believe me?  Does that mean you know some reason why my normally tight-fisted sister would suddenly go out and buy an over-priced, under-sized offworlder from a woman she swore she'd never do business with again?"

 

                He crossed his arms over his wide chest.  "I can't explain tha'."

 

                "Really?" 

 

                The man at the end of the bench moved over, anticipating Sahshell's desire to sit adjacent to Tirst before being asked.

 

                "I've been hearing a rumor for a long time now," she said.  "A rumor that my Aunt Cella made a provision in her will that anyone who inherited her lands would have to produce a daughter to be her heir within four years of inheriting."

 

                Chekov could see them out of the corner of his eye.  Tirst was spooning something into his plate.

 

                "Now after three years and no daughters, Tarell buys this offworlder,"  Sahshell continued.  "Is that it?  Is she trying to keep this house and land from passing to me?  Is there a way they can fix offworlders so they can only give daughters?  Is that why she won't let me touch him?"

 

                The big man shrugged.  "Go talk wit' Tarell."

 

                "Tarell's let you have your way too much.  It'll go hard with you if this one gives her a daughter."  Sahshell put her hand over Tirst's.  Chekov could hear the Ganzarite's breath rate quicken.  Apparently he wasn't the only one with an unusual weakness for women around here.  "It's better that we work together on this."

 

                The Northerner made no reply and no attempt to withdraw his hand.

 

                "I'll let you think about it."  Sahshell smiled as she rose and exited.

 

                After taking a moment to collect himself, the big Ganzarite got up from his place and crossed to the ensign.  From his bearing, it was clear that this man was the acknowledged alpha male in the group.  From his look, it was equally apparent that he judged Chekov's proper relative status to be a letter so far down the alphabet the Greeks hadn't bothered to invent it.

 

                "She wants me to make you dead," he said after a weighty pause.  "Or make you so you can't give a child."

 

                Chekov looked up at him.  The Ganzarite stood almost a foot taller than him and outweighed him by an amount more than equal to the ensign's own weight.  Chekov estimated his chances at emerging unscathed from unarmed combat with Tirst at low to none.  "So I surmised."

 

                "Already I begin to hate you."  The Ganzarite crossed his large tree-limb sized arms across his large tree-trunk sized chest.  "Tarell has had you, hasn't she?"

 

                Chekov put down the dish he was washing.  "Is there a way for me to... to get out of this place?"  he asked, lowering his voice and fighting the terrible headache that such thoughts brought on. 

 

                The Ganzarite looked surprised, but made no reply.

 

                "If you can help me, you must,"  Chekov urged him softly, pressing a hand against his temple to ease the pain.  "You must help me leave here before I lose the will to leave."

 

                The Ganzarite watched him silently for another moment.  His face was hard and unreadable.

 

                "Nobody help nobody here," he said at length.  "Tha's d' rule."

 

                As if to illustrate, Tirst took a clay platter from the pile and calmly sailed it across the room.  It smashed into a wall opposite then burst into a thousand pieces when it landed on the hard tile floor.

 

                The action was so sudden and senseless that it took Chekov completely by surprise.  He stared first at the Ganzarite then at the shattered crockery as the sound of footsteps pounded towards the kitchen.  Tirst casually resumed his seat at the foot of the table.

 

                "What's going on?"  Tarell arrived first with her sister close on her heels. 

 

                Chekov opened his mouth to answer since the question had been addressed to him.  He then closed it, realizing he had no idea what was going on.

 

                Tarell followed his eyes to the broken plate.  "Who did this?"

 

                All the men at the table except Tirst turned and looked at the ensign.  It seemed he'd been elected group spokesman in a vote he'd missed.  As he opened his mouth again, it occurred to Chekov that Tirst might be testing him.  The Ganzarite had just told him that group effort was strongly discouraged.  Perhaps he broke the dish to gauge the ensign's trustworthiness.  Chekov looked into Tarell's angry eyes and swallowed hard.  As initiation rituals went, this one looked like it was going to be a really tough way to break into the Boy Scouts.  "I did."

 

                "You did?"

 

                "Yes... uh.."  Chekov fervently searched for forgivable explanations of the action.  "It slipped... fr.. from my fingers."

 

                Tarell walked over to the shattered bits of pottery and measured the distance between there and the wash tub with her eyes.  "Quite a big fornicating slip."

 

                Chekov smiled and shrugged.  "It certainly was."

 

                She took a step toward him.  "You're lying to me."

 

                "No, uh..."  Chekov faltered before he could think of something to say that had a sufficient number of grains of the truth in it.  "It was my fault."

 

                "No."  Tarell shook her head suspiciously.  "Now you're changing your story.  First you say you did it and now you say it was your fault."

 

                She scanned the room.  No one met her gaze.  Sahshell was watching Tirst who'd seemed to have regained his appetite.

 

                Tarell took another step closer to Chekov.  "Who broke that plate?"

 

                The ensign cleared his throat, folded his hands behind his back and prayed that what he was about to go through was going to be worth it.  "I did."

 

                "No."  Tarell walked behind Tirst's chair.  "I'm beginning to be pretty certain someone else did it... but I will punish you for doing it if you don't tell me the truth right now."

 

                "It was my fault,"  Chekov insisted resolutely.

 

                "Your fault, I see."  Tarell put her hand on the back of Tirst's chair.  "You seem awfully quiet, Tirst."

 

                "Not'ing to say, Tarell,"  the Northerner answered between bites.

 

                "We'll see about that."  She put her hands on her hips and looked back and forth between them for a moment.  "Sahshell, you keep bundle straps in here, don't you?"

 

                "Yes."  Her sister signaled to one of her boys, who in turn opened a cabinet.

 

                "Do you even know what a bundle strap is, offworlder?"  Tarell asked as the boy rummaged around for the requested item.

 

                "A strip of tanned animal hide used to secure bunches of barbran,"  the ensign answered from his research as the boy produced one such item.  "Usually about two feet in length and a quarter of an inch thick."

 

                "Very good."  The boy handed the strap to Tarell who wrapped one end of it around her fist.  "I thought you didn't like being punished."

 

                Chekov shook his head.  "I don't.  Isn't there some other way we can resolve this?"

 

                "Yes."  Tarell smiled.  "You can tell me the truth."

 

                Chekov took a moment to weigh the consequences of his next words.  Was the humiliation and pain of letting himself be unjustly beaten by this savage worth the wisp of a chance that Tirst -- who had every reason to wish him ill and had obviously not been able to escape himself -- might be able to give him information or assistance that could get him out of this place?  Yes, yes it was.  The alternative was a lifetime of such treatment and the knowledge that he'd done nothing to try to free himself.  "I broke the plate."

 

                "All right.  Toish, Tuul."  At her signal, two dark burly slaves rose from the table.  They impassively took the apron off him and loosened all the fastenings on his shirt around the collar.  Their silence and bulk gave the proceeding the air of a formal execution.  The two then turned him so his back was towards his owner.  Each took one of his arms in their ham-sized fists and held it out straight.

 

                "You seem to be trembling,"  Tarell observed as she pulled his shirt down, baring his shoulders and the top half of his back.  "Are you losing your nerve?"

 

                Chekov remained silent even though his supply of nerve was ebbing away in a great tidal motion.

 

                "I'll need someone to keep count for me,"  Tarell was saying.  "Tirst, would you?  Start at ten and go backwards."

 

                "Yes, Tarell."

 

                Ten?  Dear God... Chekov didn't know if he could live through three blows from something that would actually give a substantial amount of pain in addition to the amplified suffering he'd felt when he'd been struck lightly.

 

                "I'll give you one more chance, offworlder,"  Tarell said.  "If you tell me the truth right now, you'll only get a very light punishment for lying and this beating will go to the one who deserves it.  Who broke the plate?"

 

                Chekov could feel the skin on his back tingle in anticipation.  He clenched and unclenched his fists, willing himself forward in time to when he would be sitting in the Rec Room with Lieutenants Uhura and Hiroto again and this would all be a very bad memory.  "I did."

 

                "Start counting, Tirst,"  Tarell ordered grimly.

 

                "Ten."

 

                He thought he'd be able to get through the first blow without crying out.  However the real pain came not with the initial impact but a few seconds after when the burning set in.

 

                "Nine."

 

                The second came too close upon the heels of the first, doubling the pain at exactly the point where he didn't think he could stand any more.  He tried to pull away, but Tarell's servants had him in an unshakable grip.

 

                "Eight... Seven.... Six..."

 

                The sound of his cries drowned out Tirst's counting.  He couldn't stop even when Tarell paused and asked for the last number to be repeated.

 

                "Five... Four... Three..."

 

                He was almost grateful the beating had started again.  At least the sharp impact of each blow momentarily numbed their terrible burning wake.

 

                "Two... One."

 

                For a few moments, he couldn't hear anything besides the sound of his own heaving breaths.  He would have cried from the endlessly echoing pain, but lacked the strength.  Moisture that could have been tears, sweat, or mucous rolled off his face and down to the tiled floor.

 

                "Good."  A light touch eased the searing torment across his shoulders momentarily.  "I didn't even break the skin."

 

                "I'd hate to see what would happen if you ever really had to hurt him,"  Sahshell commented from a distance.  "I think his heart might stop."

 

                "Oh, he's not going to ever make me do that."  The shirt was pulled back up and loosely fastened.  "Are you?"

 

                He couldn't answer.  When the two men holding him let him go, he couldn't even stand properly.  He wrapped his hands around his back, trying to press them against the places that still stung as he collapsed slowly down to the cool tiled floor.

 

                After a moment he felt a damp cloth being pressed to his face.

 

                "There, now,"  Tarell said, unwrapping his hands and wiping away the moisture clogging his vision and breathing.  One of her hands rested lightly against his shoulder, passively siphoning pain.  "That's over.  Now, I want you to apologize for lying to me..."

 

                "I am extremely sorry I lied to you,"  he choked out very truthfully.

 

                "...And tell me who broke the plate."

 

                "Tirst,"  he admitted before he even realized he was speaking.

 

                Tarell smiled at the way he belatedly clapped a hand over his mouth.  "Too late for that now,"  she said, helping him to his feet.  She took a strip of cloth from around her waist and tied it around his wrist.  "Tuul, take this one upstairs.  At the foot of my bed there's a pallet for him.  Tie him to the one of the legs.  I'd hate to have to punish him again for trying something else foolish tonight."

 

                "I..I.."  Chekov stammered, trying desperately to think of something to salvage the situation as the big servant led him away.

 

                "You've said all you need to," Tarell said, turning her back on him.  "I'm interested in hearing Tirst talk now..."

 

                Sometime during all this, the sun had sunk down almost to the horizon line.  Tarell's house was lit only by murky twilight as Tuul drug him up the swaying, rope and plank stairs.  It had been a long time since Chekov had spent the night on a planet.  It had been even longer since he'd had to bite his lip to keep himself from weeping out loud.  The drudge assigned to him didn't seem to notice the tears that kept rolling down his face as he was led into the first room at the top of the stairs, instructed to lie face down on a pile of bedding on the floor and had his wrist secured to a bedpost.

 

                Although Chekov was not fond of pain, he'd never been much of one to just cry.  He didn't know what was making him break down now.  Was it the continuing burning torment in his back?  Or the fact that he'd just stupidly destroyed the chance that he'd suffered so for to gain an ally?  He could hear the muffled sounds of another torture session taking place downstairs.  His eyes filled up again unstoppably.  He was marooned.  There was no way for the ship to locate him.  He was stuck here for the rest of his life -- a slave, worse, a slave who would in a few weeks lose the desire to be anything else but a slave.  Already he'd stopped thinking like a Star Fleet officer.  An officer would never lie around whimpering and feeling sorry for himself rather than trying to come up with a plan.

 

                That thought steadied him.  He rolled over onto his side and wiped his eyes with his free hand.  The room had a western exposure.  He could see the darkening sky out the two windows, but no stars were visible yet.  To calculate his position accurately in this unfamiliar part of the galaxy, he'd need to see the whole night sky.  There didn't seem to be much chance he'd be allowed to do that.

 

                It had been slightly after noon when he'd been abducted from the Hikasha marketplace and somewhat before noon when he'd been revived in the fat woman's barn.  That meant he'd been unconscious for at least one entire day.  Most of the evidence suggested he was in the midlands of the continent.  Calculating at the top rate of speed available in Ganzarite transport, that put him at least a day or two away from the costal city he'd been abducted from.  It was possible a much longer time had elapsed... It was possible that the time granted to the _Enterprise_ to visit Ganzar had already run out and the ship was no longer even in orbit...

 

                Chekov wiped the annoying resurgence of moisture away from his eyes and nose.  "Why can't I stop crying?"

 

                "First sign of an imminent mental collapse," the remnants of the cool, analytical part of his brain answered. 

 

                "Marvelous."  Chekov didn't notice he'd also picked up the habit of talking to himself out loud.  "I am sure a nervous breakdown is going to prove most useful in getting me out of this situation."

 

                Another blinding headache set in to remind him that he wasn't supposed to be even contemplating the possibility of thinking about that sort of thing.   Until the pain subsided all he could do was to lie there helplessly and weep like... like a woman. 

 

                He had to admit that the sisters were right.  "Like a woman" wasn't usually meant as a very complimentary phrase.  Chekov resolved to strike it from his vocabulary right after he... as soon as he could... if it were ever possible to...  Words for "leave" seemed to be fading from his repertoire.

 

                He rolled back onto his face miserably.  The hand tied to the bedpost was getting a little numb.  As he moved it to a more comfortable position, he realized that he hadn't even considered untying himself.

 

                "What have they done to me?"  he wondered aloud as he struggled with the knot.  It didn't seem reasonable that people who were so ill-advanced technologically could figure out such devilishly clever ways of tying things.

 

                Seeing it could make no progress on the question of how he was being controlled, his mind began to turn to the darker question of why.  Was it something about him?  The women had repeatedly commented that he seemed more susceptible than average to whatever conditioning had been done to make him so malleable.  That meant that other men were able to resist to a greater degree.  Why wasn't he able to?  Or was it that he wasn't sufficiently willing to resist?  Tarell had called him eager to please.  What did that mean?  He certainly wasn't eager to please her.  What he actually wanted to do to her was....

 

                Chekov groaned and buried his face in the bedding as another blinding headache overtook him.  Dimly, he could hear footsteps heading up the stairs.  The feeling in the pit of his stomach told him it was Tarell.  Here he was, tied in her bedroom.  Doubtlessly she intended to...

 

                "Oh, God," he groaned.  "Not that.  Not that again."

 

                If a week ago someone had told him that he'd be looking on the prospect of having sex with a reasonably attractive woman with fear and dread, he would have laughed.  On the _Enterprise_ , they'd joked about it.  He couldn't remember who'd said it first, maybe Hiroto,  "Cheer up, Pavel.  The worst that could happen is that you'll become an alien sex slave."

 

                It had turned out to be the worst.  His vision blurred as he thought of the _Enterprise_ and how he'd never have the chance to tell any of them how unfunny the joke had turned out to be.  He tried to get a grip on himself as he heard the door open, but tears continued to squeeze out no matter how tightly he shut his eyes.

 

                Her footsteps drew near to him at a leisurely rate.  From the change in the room's lighting, he could tell she was carrying a _hiotaz_ stone.  In the stone dwellings of the large cities, gas lights were used.  However, in the countryside, phosphorescent stones were still left out to gather sunlight all day in order to dimly light the interiors of the thatched and woven houses at night.

 

                "Not as much smarter than me as you thought you were, eh, alien?" 

 

                He knew he was expected to respond to this, but the smug condescension in her voice made him feel even worse.  A hard lump seemed to be permanently stuck in his throat.

 

                "Not looking at me, huh?"  She prodded him with her foot.  "Not talking to me either?"

 

                The most he could do without betraying himself was to shake his head.

 

                She remained silent for a long time.  He was beginning to wonder what she was doing when she finally said, "Come on, I know you can't hold your breath for much longer."

 

                She was right.  The ragged, congested gasp he eventually had to take divulged all.

 

                "Sit up," she ordered, tapping him on the shoulder.  "Somehow I didn't think you'd be one who'd be ashamed to cry.  Or is it just that you're trying to preserve a little privacy for yourself... a little dignity?"

 

                He couldn't answer her as he struggled to an upright position.  He swiped at his face with his left hand, but nothing seemed to staunch the flow.

 

                "You're not allowed privacy or dignity."  She knelt down beside the mat.  "You're my property.  I control everything you think and everything you feel.  Do you know why you're so depressed right now?"

 

                He shook his head.

 

                "Because you displeased me.  You will feel like this every time you disappoint me or make me angry with you.  Your only concern from now on -- for as long as you live -- is to make me happy.  This is how you're going to feel every time you fail to do this."

 

                Chekov couldn't meet her eyes.  All he could see was a watery version of his chest, legs and the pallet he was sitting on.  The light of the _hiotaz_ stone gave everything a pale yellow glow.

 

                "You have the longest, thickest, blackest eyelashes I've ever seen on a man,"  Tarell commented, lifting his chin up with a finger.  "That's one good thing about your white skin.  It makes them stand out more."

 

                 Even the agreeable sensation of her touch couldn't lift him from his despondency.

 

                "Come on, now."  She patted his cheek.  "You've been a real aggravation today, but you've suffered for it enough.  You can stop crying."

 

                "I... don't... s-s-seem to... be.. able.. to..."  Chekov's voice came out in choked hiccups.

 

                Tarell pulled away and observed him carefully.  "Oh, fornication," she said at length.  "You aren't trying to lose your mind on me, are you, little alien?"

 

                Chekov curled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his free arm around them.  "I'm af-f-fraid..s-so."

 

                "Fornication," the Ganzarite repeated ominously.  "That's the trouble with the clever ones.  Sometimes they just snap."

 

                Chekov rested his cheek against his knees, feeling the material covering them rapidly soak through.  "I... c-c-can't... st-stand to...l-l-live like... this."

 

                "Things aren't always going to be like this, you little idiot," she snapped. 

 

                The Ganzarite sighed as the ensign pulled even further away from her.

 

                "Once you learn how to behave, you'll have the easiest job in the house," she said in a deliberately milder, more cajoling tone.  "You'll sleep here in my bed.  I've bought nice clothes for you and special food...  Tell you what, if you promise to make a real effort to cooperate, I won't even make you work in the kitchen tomorrow.  I'll let you fool with that offworldish machine I bought.... or I could let you go out in the yard... Get a little sun, eh?  Darken you up a little, eh?  You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

 

                Chekov swiped at his eyes and tried to look at her.  Her face was still a smeary watercolor.  "Please... let me go, Tarell," he begged.  "I d-don't belong here.  You... you don't even p-particularly... l-l-like me."

 

                The Ganzarite sat back on her heels and crossed her arms.  "You're not going to go crazy.  You're too fornicating stubborn to go crazy.  Now for the last time, quit thinking about the offworld.  You're not going back there... ever.  I'm not letting you go.  If I decide to get rid of you, I'll sell you or just have you put to sleep."

 

                She meant killed.  It was the same euphemism a Ganzarite would use for the fate of an animal that had become useless.

 

                "You... d-d-despise me b-because... of.. of my race,"  he observed miserably.  "You... d-don't even... c-call me by... a... a proper n-name."

 

                "All right, that's enough," she said firmly.  "Now lie back and I'll show you that I like you and what I like you for."

 

                Chekov opened his eyes.  This definitely wasn't the way he wanted the conversation to turn.  "T-t-tarell..."

 

                "Shhh..."  She reached out and taking hold the toe of his left shoe, pulled his leg down to the mat.  "I said, lie down."

 

                The tears stopped as she removed his shoe and lightly caressed his foot.  A new sort of sensory/emotional input travelled up his spine.  "T-tarell..."

 

                "Tomorrow I'll teach you some knots," she said loosening the ties at his ankle.  "At least enough so you can dress yourself... although I do like undressing you.  Now lie down like I told you."

 

                He couldn't seem to stop from obeying her.  "This isn't what I want to do," he warned her as he eased down onto his back.

 

                "Oh, we'll see about that."  The Ganzarite smiled as she worked her way closer to the part of his body that was going to adamantly contradict his last statement.

 

                "This isn't the way I feel about you,  Tarell,"  he protested to the ceiling.  No other part of him could be convinced to do anything to impede her progress, though.

 

                "I know,"  she replied, pausing a moment to remove her outer robes.  "But that can be changed."

 

* * *      *****      * * *

 

                "So the skin samples check out?"

 

                Captain Kirk sat on the edge of his bed in the large quarters he'd been provided in Hikasha's huge stone municipal building.

 

                "It's definitely Chekov and Ghyka,"  McCoy's voice answered from the open communicator in his hand.  "But the samples are in such lousy shape... If that's the current state of forensic medicine down there..."

 

                "I doubt it is,"  Kirk replied.  "I think the authorities are just doing all they can to keep us guessing whether those samples were cut from living bodies yesterday or dead ones this afternoon."

 

                "Like I said, the samples are in pretty poor condition.  But my findings lean more towards the former than the latter."

 

                "Good..."  Out of the corner of his eye, Kirk thought he saw a movement on the stone balcony that overlooked the marketplace.  In the flickering gaslight it was hard to be sure, but...  "Uh... O.K. Bones, do what you can.  I'll check back in with you in about a half hour."

 

                "Well, I don't think I'll be able to tell you anything..."

 

                "I said, do what you can, Bones.  Kirk out."  He closed the cover of the communicator abruptly, hoping that would be enough of a warning to the ship that he might be in trouble.  Keeping his peripheral vision focused on the blue crocheted curtain hanging over the balcony as it flapped gently in a night breeze, Kirk slowly reached for his phaser.

 

                "It's a little chilly out there," he called to his unknown visitor, resting the phaser in his lap.  "Wouldn't you prefer to come in?"

 

                A tall woman with dark hair braided into a familiar-looking conical silhouette stepped out of the shadows.  "I didn't want to interrupt your call."

 

                His intruder was Gallew, a council spokesperson for the radical isolationist faction.

 

                Kirk smiled, but his grip on his phaser didn't relax.  "I was hoping you'd decide to pay a call."

 

                Her layers of kimonos made a whispery sound as she walked towards the bed.  "That won't be necessary,"  she said pointing to his weapon.

 

                "If you'll pardon me, I'd like to make my own judgment about that."

 

                "Your men had those," she observed.  "But they didn't do them much good."

 

                This didn't exactly sound promising.  "Their deaths are being blamed on your faction."

 

                Gallew lifted an eyebrow.  "You believe that they are dead?"

 

                Kirk barely stopped himself from sighing in relief.  "No, I don't.  But in order to clear the people you represent, you've got help me find out where they are."

 

                The Ganzarite shook her head.  "I'm afraid I'm not here to divulge any information."

 

                Kirk's grip on his phaser tightened.  "Then just why are you here?"

 

                "To gauge your desire for information."

 

                He laughed humorlessly.  "Well, lady, my desire for information is pretty great right now."

 

                "That's good."  Gallew unfastened her outermost robe.  "Because I'm going to require a demonstration of good faith on your part. You see, if you were  suddenly to come into possession of certain information about the whereabouts of your men, suspicion would immediately fall on my faction.  There might be reprisals."

 

                "Reprisals from whom?"

 

                She smiled as she laid her robe on the bed.  "If you came into that information, there would definitely be reprisals.  I will tell you this much though, we isolationists are interested in removing all alien presence from Ganzar."

 

                Her emphasis made it clear she wasn't just talking about putting restrictions on Federation trading rights like she'd been trying to do for the past few days in the council chambers. 

 

                "What about this gesture of good faith on my part?"  Kirk asked, taking his thumb off the trigger of his phaser.

 

                The Ganzarite took two long wooden hairpins out of her coiffure and shook her braids free.  "As I said, if you come into certain information, suspicion will fall on the isolationists.  To diffuse this, you must make very convincing efforts to get information from other sources.  Specifically, before I give you any information, I must be satisfied that there will be evidence to suggest that you could have gotten the same information from individuals like the Head Speaker of the Council, the Municipal Director, the Chair of Agricultural Affairs, and the Director of Security..."

 

                Kirk flinched at the last name on the list.  "Just what are you thinking of in terms of my making a 'convincing effort'?"

 

                "That's up to you."  Gallew shrugged as she loosened the fastenings of the next layer of her robes.  "...But I'd suggest you simply use the normal method men employ to try to influence women."

 

                "Gallew..."  Kirk couldn't help but smile as the next layer of kimono fluttered to the floor.  "...What are you doing?"

 

                "I thought it might advance our common cause if I offered you..."  She sat down next to him on the bed and gently pushed him onto his back.  "...a little instruction."

 

                Kirk grinned.  "You feel I need it?"

 

                "Yes, I'm afraid so,"  she said, then kissed him pityingly.  "Aside from your lack of physical attractiveness, it's painfully obvious from your behavior that you don't know the first thing about seducing a woman..."

 

* * *      *****      * * *

 

                "Wake up."

 

                Chekov was roused by a touch of pure heaven at his neck.  He opened his eyes to see Tarell sitting on the bed next to him.

 

                "Do you know where you are, offworlder?"  She smiled as she took the Vegan medical monitor off his hand.

 

                Tarell's sleeping quarters were much more impressive in the daylight.  The large airy room's walls were a weave of cream, blue, and gold.  The wooden furniture was brightly painted in darker versions of the same colors.  The bed he was lying in was wide enough to comfortably hold four.  It swayed gently on its rope mattress supports in rhythm with Tarell's movements.

 

                Chekov rubbed his eyes and raised up on his elbows.  "I think so."

 

                She grinned as she took out a length of string to record the readings on.  "You're in my bed."

 

                "Yes."  While she was fully dressed, he was covered only by the crocheted bedcover he was lying under.  He adjusted the blanket a little more strategically.  "That much I remember."

 

                The Ganzarite's face fell as she checked her previous records against the new numbers.  "Oh, no.  These are too low.  Are you sick?"

 

                "No, probably it's because..."  Suddenly remembering how it displeased her to be corrected, Chekov bit his lip on his explanation.

 

                Tarell crossed her arms.  "All right, go on and tell me."

 

                "If the readings were taken while I was asleep," he said, carefully choosing a passive construction that he hoped would appease her,  "then my pulse and respiration rates would naturally be lower...."

 

                "Oh,"  she groaned, rolling her eyes.  "What a male-reproductive-organs-for-brains mistake!  I just can't get the hang of this fornicating machine.  If I had the time to decipher that manual...."

 

                "In the offworld,"  Chekov offered tentatively,  "when a person with many responsibilities -- like yourself -- has volumes of technical information that they must assimilate quickly, often they assign an underling the task of going through the material and preparing a summary for them..."

 

                "An underling?"  She eyed him narrowly as she opened a container and took out a large white pill.  "You mean that you think I should let you read the manual and teach me how to run this thing?"

 

                Knowing that he had yet again strayed into unsafe territory, Chekov made no answer other than to open his mouth to receive the pill.

 

                "You think I'm too stupid to figure it out myself?"

 

                "No," he protested before accepting water to wash the medication down.

 

                "Why else then?"  she demanded, producing another set of pills.

 

                He sighed miserably.  Awake no more than two minutes and already in hot water.  "I don't know.  I.. I suppose I would just like to feel useful in some way."

 

                The Ganzarite grinned as her eyes travelled down his body.  "You are useful in some ways."

 

                It was strange the way such treatment from her made him feel extremely humiliated and extremely flattered at the same time.  Stranger still was the way gratification seemed to be taking a distinct lead over embarrassment this morning.

 

                "I have a few things I have to see to downstairs," she said as she fed him another capsule.  "There's a bathroom through that door if you need it, but I'd prefer it if you just went back to sleep for a while.  You are not to touch _any_ of my things.  Do you understand?"

 

                He obediently swallowed a couple more tablets.  "Yes, ma'am.  Um... Where are my clothes?"

 

                "You won't need them."  She leaned forward and kissed him.  "You see, after I come back upstairs I've decided to devote the rest of the morning to having you... demonstrate your usefulness."

 

                Chekov closed his eyes, trying to force his brain to produce one good reason why it shouldn't be enjoying this the way the rest of his body was.

 

                "Such pretty eyes, even when they're not open."  Tarell caressed his cheek.  "What do you think of me this morning, offworlder?"

 

                "I think,"  he said, kissing the hand that controlled him,  "that I am beginning to fall in love with you, Tarell."

 

                "Very good."  She smiled.  "Somehow I knew you'd feel that way."

 

*   *   *

 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

 

Chekov lay on his back on a blanket in the shade of a large tree practicing trying knots. He'd moved out of the sun after a while, feeling that Tarell didn't quite understand the concept of sunburns as well as she should. His right ankle was tied to a long piece of rope that was tied around the base of the tree. Nothing to worry about, Tarell had told him, just a reminder.

The thing that bothered Chekov the most about being tied was that it didn't bother him enough. Unless he concentrated on reasons why he should be unhappy, he found he was perfectly content to lie in the sun daydreaming, idly whiling away the time until Tarell summoned him again.

"Until Dr. Pavlov brings out more bells," he corrected himself sarcastically. 

It was no use, though. In this state of post-sexual euphoria, he couldn't maintain self-disgust for very long. The image of himself salivating on cue seemed more humorously apt than repulsive at this moment.

"So," a deep voice said unexpectedly. "You decide you don' want to go nowhere?"

Chekov shielded his eyes from the sunlight glinting through the leaves as he looked up at the tall man standing at the side of the tree shielded from view from the house. "Do I have a choice?"

Tirst quickly checked towards the windows. "Act like I'm not here."

The ensign re-positioned himself so that he was lying on his stomach facing away from the house. "Why are you here?"

"You still able to t'ink about going back to d' offworld?"

The ensign's reaction to the sudden spasm of pain that pierced the pastel fog in his brain was enough proof enough of this for the Ganzarite.

"In Tarell's office, behind d' back wall is an offworldish t'ing dat tells where you be when you are out of the house."

Chekov sent a quick word of thanks to whatever power that had suddenly decided to smile on him. Knowledge of the location of the surveillance system wasn't exactly a free ticket home, but it was definitively something to hold on to -- one good reason why he shouldn't be content to settle for an early retirement on Ganzar as an alien sex slave. "This... offworldish thing doesn't track individuals inside the house, though?"

"You already know dat?"

"That would explain the belled shoes."

Tirst nodded, his admiration clearly grudging. "A few of us has got to it b'fore, but you can't smash it without bells and such going off. We figured that maybe since you're offworldish you can work it."

A broad assumption on their part, but, with reasonable amount of luck, not an inaccurate one. A big technical problem occurred to the ensign. "I suppose this thing is made of metal."

"Use wooden sticks."

"Oh.. yes, of course," Chekov said feeling a little chagrined. Well, score one for the stone knives and bear skin contingent. "I need to get back to Hikasha..."

"Don' go there. They look for you there first. Go..." Tirst paused then jerked his head in direction of one of the walls beyond them.

"North?"

As spasm of pain distorted the big man's face, Chekov belatedly realized that the barbarian too had undergone Tarell's cure for wanderlust. "The Nomads, free men, will take you in. Though I don't know if a lil' runt like you could survive d' cold..."

Chekov smiled. "I'm from Russia."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I don't mind the cold. How will I coordinate my efforts with you?"

"What?"

"When I make my...attempt, you'll want to know, correct? You will want to go also?"

"No," the other man replied shortly. "I can never go back. There's no place for me. I've grown too dependant on women. Men wouldn't respect me. Any woman I would take as mine would quickly find out how to rule me. No, I been here too long to leave."

Chekov started to argue with this irrationality, then paused. If gender-based prejudice was as strong among the men as it was here among the women, Tirst might be right. The ensign shook his head. This planet was collectively long overdue for a group appointment with a good psychiatrist. "Is there anything I can do for you in return for this information?"

"Don't get caught," the Ganzarite instructed him weightily.

Remembering what had happened the last time he'd been caught, Chekov had to look away. "I am sorry about what happened yesterday."

"That?" Tirst laughed. "That was nothing next to what they do if they catch you outside these walls. I wanted you to see that you can't hide anything from them. If you're caught, you betray me, then I betray Tivez who told me, then he betrays Tuul who tried a year ago...."

Chekov nodded accepting the implications of the trust being conferred on him. "Death before capture, correct?"

"If possible." Tirst didn't sound too displeased at the prospect. "If not, just try to lie a little better, huh? Cry, beg to be forgiven, beg her to have sex with you and you'll get off lightly. Resist her, try to be brave and you'll end up betraying us all."

Chekov sighed. Death seemed the better option. "I understand."

Tirst checked the windows again in preparation to departing. "You should try soon. She won't be expecting it out of you now, not after a beating and a night of...."

"There is one thing I know that might interest you," Chekov interrupted hastily. "Tarell has me take yellow pills that supposedly make it possible for me to give her daughters. If the Orions, I mean, the Offworlders, are able to do this for me, they can do it for you as well."

The Ganzarite shook his head. "They have said this wasn't possible."

"As an offworlder, I can assure you that they are lying," Chekov replied. "Although I am not sure why they should lie. Perhaps the yellow pills don't work at all-- even on me. Perhaps they're trying to make buying offworlders more attractive to Ganzarite clients. It could even be that the Orions are afraid the widespread use of the drug would give away their presence on Ganzar to the Federation. But they do have the knowledge to solve your and Tarell's problem in conceiving a daughter."

"Good." A hard, cold, calculating smile settled on the Ganzarite's face. Evidently, as with the information he'd bestowed on Chekov, these were facts he could use to an advantage beyond the ensign's appreciation. "Be glad you waited to tell me this, offworlder," he said cheerfully as he crouched to make his exit. "Now, I'm rid of you no matter what happens."

* * * ***** * * *

"A member of a Ganzarite faction has made contact with me and claimed to have information about the whereabouts of our men," Kirk informed the security guard as soon as he entered his chambers.

Johnson's normally bland expression lit up with a smile. "Excellent."

"There's a catch though," Kirk warned him. "Before she gives us the information, she wants us to take certain actions to throw suspicions on her political enemies."

"What sort of actions, sir?"

Kirk paused. After last night, he really didn't want to go into the details. "Have you managed to make any friends among the Ganzarites?"

"No, sir," Johnson replied without malice, but also without any hesitation.

Kirk chewed his lower lip. "Do you feel there might be any women who may be... attracted to you or Davis?"

"No, sir," Johnson answered, again without pausing a second to consider. "No matter what their appearance may be like, Ganzarite women find white-skinned men under six feet tall revolting."

"So I've noticed."

"It seems that pale skin is associated with death, skeletons, extreme old age, illness -- particularly a disease much like leprosy, and fish -- especially dead fish."

"Not the most arousing metaphorical associations," Kirk agreed.

"No, sir," Johnson said, then sighed.

"What is it?"

"I just keep thinking about Chekov, sir," the security man admitted. "One of the smallest, whitest guys on the ship..."

Kirk nodded. "At the risk of sounding like Mr. Spock, I have to say his abduction does not seem logical."

"He must have stayed close to Ghyka," Johnson theorized. "He must have seen something whoever abducted the commander didn't want him to see."

Kirk nodded again, joylessly recalling the navigator's remarkable propensity to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. "You're thinking that whoever took Ghyka may have killed Chekov?"

"Yes, sir. Unless they're holding him as a prisoner or a hostage."

"We've had no indications of a hostage situation," Kirk reasoned with a coolness he did not feel. "And maintaining him as a prisoner wouldn't seem to have any benefits."

"Yes, sir." Johnson shook his head slowly. "I'd like to think he's still alive, but I just don't see anything the Ganzarites could be doing with him..."

* * * ***** * * *

"Here he is," Tarell said. "My little alien."

The first thing that Chekov noticed about the unfamiliar woman in the sitting area of Tarell's spacious office was that she looked almost exactly like the man who knelt beside her. Both of them had cinnamon colored skin, black braided hair, long pointed noses and watery blue eyes that looked slightly crossed. The woman continued to stare at him after her male companion had averted his gaze. 

"He's so... white," she said, putting one thin hand to her chest protectively.

"Is he?" Tarell feigned surprise. "And he was as black as pitch when I sent him out. What could have happened? Did you fade in the sun, offworlder?"

"I don't think so." In response to his owner's beckoning, Chekov moved towards them, fighting his burning desire to stare at the back wall and figure out where a security system could be hidden. As he moved towards Tarell and her visitor, he realized he wasn't exactly sure what was expected of him in this social situation. Deciding to conform to the only rules of etiquette he knew, he gave the newcomer a polite nod. "Your acquaintance honors..."

"Oh, shut up, you idiot," Tarell interrupted rudely. "Pieces of property don't greet free people."

"Oh, of course." Chekov blushed deeply, thinking that she might have given him some warning or at least found a more discreet way of correcting him. "I'm sorry if I offended..."

"Just shut up," Tarell grabbed his sleeve and jerked him into a kneeling position beside her.

Her guest smiled pleasantly, unruffled by this awkwardness. "He certainly speaks well, Tarell."

"He speaks a little too fornicating much," Tarell said as a final warning.

If the Northern's vile language upset her genteel Southern visitor, the latter didn't let it show. In one perfectly coordinated gesture, she put her hand out and her servant filled it with a glass of fruit juice without exchanging a glance. 

"Do you have a name?" the visitor asked Chekov in a kind tone.

"My name is..."

"No," Tarell said over him. "I've not named him yet."

Chekov looked back at her. "I do have a name, though."

"Yes," Tarell said between her teeth, indicating with a jerk of her head that he should be getting a drink for her also. "You may have had a name in the offworld, but since this isn't the offworld, it would be pretty ignorant to think that you're going to be called by some unpronounceable offworldish gibberish. Wouldn't it?"

He bit his tongue on the replies that came to mind as he got her stupid fruit juice for her.

"Don't worry." The visitor paused as her servant dabbed the corners of her mouth with a dainty piece of cloth. "Tarell will give you a lovely name... doubtlessly beginning with the letter T."

"It's a Northern custom," Tarell explained, wiping her own mouth with the back of her hand. "The first letter of men's names show who they belong to and the last letters of women's names show who their mother was."

"Very quaint," her guest commented with sweet condescension. "A pity Sahshell seems to have decided to abandon the practice in favor of our more causal Southern style."

Tarell returned her smile. "Well, naming customs do help us to keep from sleeping with our uncles and brothers.... Oh, no offence."

Her visitor looked confused for a moment. She then followed her host's gaze to her servant as if she'd completely forgotten he was there. "Oh, yes. Well, Humiot and I are only half-siblings at most. We might share a father but it's not like we share a mother. Now, that would be just too close."

Tarell gave Chekov a one-eyed wink. "Oh, yes."

"You know my aunt Claon bought two of her full brothers because she just couldn't stand to separated from them, but they've never been able to have healthy children. I suppose we Southerners are just too sentimental for our own good sometimes."

"Sometimes."

"But then again," she said as she delicately took a piece of fruit from the waiting hand of her sibling/servant, "you aren't at all related to Tirst or any of your other men, but you've had some problems conceiving too...."

Chekov could see Tarell stiffen. "Yes, well..."

"You aren't going to mate with this one, are you?" her visitor asked, then laughed daintily. "I mean, all your children would be white, wouldn't they?"

"Probably not," Chekov answered, since it looked as though the question was directed towards him. He wasn't a biologist, but he knew that the results of artificially aided breeding produced much more predictable selecting, omitting, and blending of racial characteristics than natural means. He doubted the Orions would design a gene splicer for the Ganzarites that would favor white skin if they were interested in having repeat customers.

"Oh?" the visitor replied politely. 

"Yes," Tarell replied expertly. "White breeds out because it's so inferior."

"That's..." Chekov stopped himself before expressing his opinions on how naively racist and ethnocentric such a statement was. Not only would his comment as a member of a lesser race be unwelcome, the Ganzarite language had no word for 'ethnocentric'. "It's much more complicated than that."

"Well, there's no point discussing it since I'd never be foolish enough to spend the kind of money you'd have to pay for the medicine it takes to breed with an offworlder," Tarell said quickly.

He looked at her questioningly, wondering why she was lying, but she ignored him. 

Her guest continued to watch him speculatively with her weak blue eyes. "Have you been a lot of trouble to Tarell, offworlder?"

"I wouldn't know how to judge that," he replied decorously.

"I think that wouldn't be too hard," she said, laughing. "How many times has she beaten you?" 

His mouth worked for a moment without any sound coming out. Being casually questioned in such a demeaning and belittling fashion was so incredible to him, didn't know how to respond.

"Go on." Tarell unsympathetically prodded him with one foot. "Answer her."

"But..." escaped his lips before he realized how disastrous it would be to voice his objection to such a question.

"You'll have to forgive him, Ushan. My little offworlder is quite civilized. He finds the entire subject of beatings distasteful," Tarell said, accurately stating his reasons for him. "It's not occurred to him yet how much more distasteful it would be for me to beat him in front of you for refusing to answer questions put to him."

"Three times," Chekov replied without further ill-advised hesitation.

"What for?" the visitor pursued pleasantly.

Chekov uncomfortably studied the tile floor. "Various offences."

"Nothing really," Tarell said, then crossed her arms. "Other than embarrassing my overly proper servant, why are you asking, Ushan?"

"Foushee's have a horrible time with her new one," the Southerner gossiped eagerly. "He looks marvelous and cost a fortune, but he's as wild as the wind. He wasn't conditioned properly. She's had to..."

"Not in front of this one," Tarell interrupted abruptly. She rapped Chekov, who had become avidly interested in the conversation for the first time, on the top of his head. "The two of them came together. But he's no concern of yours anymore, understand, offworlder?"

"Yes, ma'am," the ensign replied meekly, as a new surge of adrenaline pulsed through his veins. Commander Ghyka was in trouble nearby. Chekov had no excuse for delaying his escape attempt a moment longer than necessary. If only there was some way he could arrange to be left alone in this room...

"It would be a shame to see such an expensive piece of flesh ruined or put down because some blunderer didn't..." Tarell's visitor continued heedlessly.

"I hate to rush you," Tarell cut her off. "But I really have to be getting back to my accounts, Ushan."

"Of course." The Southerner smiled. "It gets so busy right before a harvest, doesn't it?"

"Go pull that cord beside my desk." Tarell ordered Chekov, pulling him up by one arm. "I'll have Sahshell come see you out, Ushan."

"I know my way to the door," her guest protested politely as her servant silently helped her to her feet.

"Yes, that one." Tarell nodded impatiently when the ensign hesitated over the long braided cord dangling from a hole near the top of the wall. "Now, come back here."

"He seems bright," Ushan commented cheerfully. Her servant unobtrusively arranged her robes. "I'm sure you'll have him trained in no time.

"Behind me," Tarell corrected, pushing her servant quickly into position. "Maybe I'll be able to bring him with me next time I visit your house."

"That would be a treat!" her guest exclaimed happily as her servant noiselessly pushed a chair out of her path then dropped behind her. "It's been too long since you visited last."

The two women touched palms in a conventional gesture of friendship.

"The hospitality of my house, Ushan..." Tarell began.

"...Reflects the generosity of your spirit, Tarell," her guest replied, completing the customary formula for departures.

Instead of Sahshell herself, one of her boys stood waiting in the hallway to convey the Southerners to the foyer. Tarell closed the heavy door behind them. A small smile crept over her face as she stood for a moment silently surveying her property.

"True, wasn't it?" she said. "What you told Ushan about your children not inheriting your skin color?"

Chekov nodded. "I believe so."

"Daughters would be more like me than like you."

"Probably."

"No, definitely. I've known of other women who mated with offworlders. A boy baby might take offworldish looks from his sire, but a girl always looks normal. She has the offworldish blood, of course, but it doesn't show so much on girls."

Chekov made no comment although this told him a good deal about the nature of the Orion drug being used to facilitate cross-breeding.

"That old bitch had me dreaming I'd have white babies." Tarell shook her head and laughed. "But I won't, will I?"

"Probably not." Chekov said, not liking this subject of "babies" at all.

"Hmm," she said, stepping closer to him with a smile on her face. "You were very, very good while Ushan was here."

He wasn't really too enthusiastic about this turn in the conversation either. "Thank you," he said, returning her smile nervously.

"So polite, so clever," she continued in a frighteningly pleasant tone of voice. "I think you deserve to be rewarded, don't you?"

"Isn't it time for me to take more medicine?" he asked, backing away.

Tarell put her hands on her hips. "Is this coyness considered arousing in the offworld? I assure you I don't find your feigned reluctance to have sex with me at all attractive."

"Tarell, if I may be perfectly frank..." He swallowed, knowing this was a mistake, but went on anyway. "Our relationship has a rather artificial basis."

"What?"

Since Ganzarite relationships between men and women were fairly simple, they didn't even have a word for "relationship". The word he'd used meant something closer to "kinship". "What I mean to say is that you don't particularly like me."

Tarell shrugged. "I'm getting used to you."

"You find my physical appearance repulsive and my personality offensive," he pointed out, then continued bravely, "and if I weren't conditioned to respond physically the way I do, I'm not sure I would be at all attracted to you."

Tarell put her hands on her hips. "I suppose you're being reasonable and rational with me now."

"I'm trying to be."

"All right." She nodded judiciously. "Then I'll give you a reasonable and rational decision to make. Either you can get your clothes off and get onto your back right now, or you can walk over to my desk, fetch the barbran stick out of the top drawer and bend over the arm of this chair."

Clearly, the science of interpersonal communication had a ways to go on Ganzar.

"Well..." Chekov sighed as he loosed the ties on his shoulder seams. "At least I had a choice this time."

* * * ***** * * *

"Captain Kirk..." Dargion, the chair the governing committee, greeted politely at him as he entered her office. The desks of Ganzarite administrators were something to see. They were virtual works of art. All were elaborately carved and loaded with deep drawers and specialized nooks. Yet each deck was also individual and designed to reflect or project something about the individual owner. Dargion's desk was invitingly colorful.

"Dargion," Kirk smiled winningly at his first target. The Chair was a middle-aged woman with a face more rounded that most Ganzarites. She might not be the most attractive, but she was certainly the most approachable of the Ganzarite women in charge here. Since her job was to mediate and coordinate, she was far less arrogant and sharped-tongued than average. "Thank you for receiving me."

"I was very sorry to hear about your men."

"Yes, well..."

"I hope you aren't here with hopes that I can give you any special access to the investigation into their disappearance and death," she interrupted. "I'm afraid that's completely out of my hands."

Kirk clucked his tongue at her chidingly. "A few days ago I might have believed that. In my culture, there is a tendency to separate power and specialize skills. But I've been on Ganzar long enough to realize that within your committee structure of government, individuals often wear several different hats."

"Hats?" she said as he moved the chair placed in front of her desk to a more intimate position at its side.

"Have secondary as well as primary responsibilities," Kirk explained as he sat down. "Members of your staff also work for the security committee."

"How very clever you are." A glint in her eye told him this wasn't really a compliment. "I am impressed that you're gaining a deeper understanding of the way our culture works, however..."

"...However a decision has been made," he finished for her. "I understand that and I don't wish to put you in a difficult situation, but I'm sure you can also appreciate my concern, my desire for any additional information..."

"Of course," she said, sympathetic but unyielding. "It's a most unfortunate situation."

Kirk mentally drew in a deep breath. It looked like he was going to have to do this Gallew's way after all. "I understand. You know, this is one of the first opportunities that you and I have had to talk to each other outside of the council chambers."

"Yes, I'm afraid my duties keep me very busy."

"That's a shame," Kirk said. "I'm sure that because of the similarity of our jobs, you and I should have a great deal in common.... and it's always a pleasure to talk with a beautiful woman."

She smiled at him. But before he could celebrate a breakthrough and commend himself for the universal appeal of his charm, she said, "Excuse me for being blunt, Captain, but are you making a sexual overture towards me?"

Kirk sighed. "Well, I.."

"I don't mean to offend you," she continued gently. "But Ganzarite sexual practices are different from those of your culture.."

"I am aware of that," Kirk informed her dryly.

"Intellectually aware, perhaps..."

"No, Madame Chair," he corrected with a bold smile. "I've actually had some firsthand experience."

The Ganzarite's mouth fell open in surprise. "Really?" she asked, dropping completely out of character as the polite bureaucrat. "With who?"

"In my culture, it's considered impolite and ill-advised to disclose that sort of information," he replied demurely, getting the feeling that he had her hooked now.

"Yes, yes, of course." Dargion struggled to regain her detachment, but broke down to ask, "And she enjoyed it?"

"Oh, yes," Kirk lied confidently.

"And you didn't find our ways... too...?"

"Well, I seem to be willing to try again," he said as truthfully as was possible.

"Hmm." Dargion rubbed her forefinger thoughtfully across her lips as her eyes ran down his body appraisingly. She then consulted stack of carved blocks and beads on her desktop that Kirk recognized as the Ganzarite version of an appointment calendar. "We have a saying here, Captain Kirk: The only thing more dangerous than unsatisfied curiosity is the satisfaction of curiosity."

Not being Ganzarite, Kirk couldn't tell he'd been accepted or refused.

"So," she said, rising, "as you Federation people would say, what the hell? I've got a half an hour. I'll try you out if you're willing."

"Well, I.." Kirk said, as she took his arm to help him out of his chair.

"It's a little too light in here," she said, guiding him with a hand on his back towards a door to their right. "I've got an antechamber that will be more appropriate... Not to say that it has to be dark... I mean, I don't mean to indicate that you're unattractive..."

"I wasn't taking it that way." Kirk said, feeling like a mercy date for the first time in his life. If Chekov wasn't already dead, Kirk was going to kill him for this.

"And, of course, you do understand that if I indicate I'm not enjoying what we're doing, our customs require that you stop immediately," she cautioned, opening the door for him.

Kirk purposefully stepped in the doorway and then gestured for her to proceed ahead of him. "Let's worry about that when it happens."

* * * ***** * * *

 

"I just rang Sahshell to bring you some food."

The period of disorientation that accompanied waking up on Ganzar was becoming rather brief for Chekov. He barely had time to rub his eyes before he remembered why he was lying on the floor of the study of a Ganzarite dwelling and the nature of his relationship with the native woman standing over him. "Did I go to sleep?"

"Only for about two hours," Tarell replied dryly. She picked up a large piece of white material and dropped it on him. "You may want to put some clothes on ...out of respect for my sister's eyes. All this whiteness could blind her."

"Yes, of course." He hastily wrapped the material he was lying on around him and threaded the ties through the proper sashes to convert it into a pair of trousers. He sat up and began fastening the series of knots that ran up the inseam of his garment. He was half-way to his knee when Tarell cleared her throat loudly. 

When he looked up, she shook her head.

"But you taught me this knot," he protested.

"It's the knot that stands for the number three," she said, kneeling down and undoing all he'd managed to accomplish. "You don't use it to tie your clothes with. I don't see why you have to be fornicating thick-headed about asking for help. When do they teach you in the offworld that you need pretend to have all knowledge? At birth?"

"It's not that. I simply don't enjoy feeling helpless."

"You're not helpless. You're just dependant," she corrected firmly as she wrapped the ties around his left ankle. "On me... from now on... And now I suppose you're going to tell me you don't enjoy that either."

The ensign made no answer.

"It doesn't do you any good to sit there with a stubborn look on your face thinking you're right and I'm wrong." She put his shirt on him. "Now does it?"

He chose to take this question as rhetorical.

"Does it?" she repeated, tipping his chin up. His nonverbal answer was pretty obvious from that range, but she let him get away with it for the moment. "You're such a serious thing... but you smiled for me this morning, didn't you?"

He didn't answer or meet her eyes, but he also couldn't quite pull away from her touch.

She laughed and mussed his hair. "Pretty soon you're going to have to stop pretending that I'm being cruel to you, offworlder."

"It is cruel to keep me here when I want to... to.." 

"Leave?" She laughed again as she finished tying the knot at his neck. "You'll stop wanting that soon. Already you can't even remember the word."

Chekov watched her fingers as they worked their way down his right sleeve, holding onto the idea that the key to his freedom was only a few feet away behind the back wall of this room.

"And..." Tarell continued as she secured another tie across his chest. "You can't tell me you don't enjoy the sex."

To his ever-lasting humiliation, he couldn't say that. In fact, it was all he could do at that moment to keep himself from reaching for her. "It doesn't seem quite natural, though," he protested feebly.

"What doesn't?" she asked, starting on his left arm.

"To... to do... such things... so often," he said, keeping his voice very low, as if to prevent some non-existent auditor from overhearing their conversation. "I do not believe that my body is supposed to function in such a manner."

Tarell laughed at him for this. Her laugh started as a mere chuckle but soon worked its way up to a full-throated expression of mirth.

"What a little... " She affectionately pinched his cheek as she called him a derogatory combination of the words for coward, virgin, and prude. "... you are. Is that what's been the matter with you? You're afraid I'm going to fornicate you to death?"

"Well..." Chekov tried to rub the stinging blush off one of his cheeks.

"Don't you worry, laddie." Tarell smiled as she reached over and patted his inner thigh in a manner that took his breath away. "It's your body I bought. Don't doubt that I'm taking proper care of it. I intend to see that it lasts for a very long time. Now put all this furniture back the way it's supposed to be."

"I don't know if I remember exactly how it was," he said, rising.

"Just do it." Tarell headed back towards her desk. "If you're wrong, I'll correct you."

That was certainly the Ganzarite way, Chekov reflected sourly as he drug a low table back to its place between two facing chairs. Why tell someone the right way to do something to begin with when it might ruin your opportunity later to abuse them for doing it incorrectly? He worried about Commander Ghyka as he straightened a hammock-bottomed chair. It sounded as though the commander was being a lot more successful at putting up resistance. Chekov hated to speculate on the price he was probably paying for it, though. The ensign took the opportunity to glance up at the back wall as he returned a couple of stray cushions to the divan-like seat in front of him. The security monitoring system was likely to be near the computer terminal. Even if he did find it, it was still going to be hard getting out of this room. One door and a line of closed windows along the east wall were the only possible exits...

Sahshell entered, followed by one of her boys bearing a covered tray. 

"What did Ushan want?" she asked, as she pointed the boy in the direction of the low table.

"Who knows?" Tarell put down her pen and crossed to cluster of furniture. She sat down in one of the chairs opposite the table. "She was snooping around pretty hard. Come here, my little animal. It's time to feed you."

Chekov had to assume she was addressing him. He hoped that this meal didn't consist exclusively of more oliov, but he was disappointed as the cover was removed from the tray.

"Kneel down," Tarell instructed, as Sahshell's boy exited as wordlessly as he'd arrived. "I'll let you hold onto the arm of the chair this time."

"You needn't go to the trouble..." he began, as it became apparent that this meal would also involve being fed by hand.

"What trouble?" she asked putting a chunk into his mouth.

He tried chewing the stuff, but the lack of taste made the exercise pointless. "Of feeding me this way."

"Don't worry about that." Tarell put another cube into his mouth and turned to her sister. "It's how Ushan puts on such a show of being my friend that makes me want to strangle her."

Chekov swallowed the next piece whole. "What I mean to say is, I'm capable of feeding myself."

"Look, I'm trying to have a conversation with my sister. Just shut up and eat or I'll turn you over my knees and..." Tarell used an unfamiliar verb. " .... you. ... What are you giving me that look for?"

"I didn't understand what you said. Although I suppose I'm correct to assume it's a punishment of some sort?"

Both sisters seemed to find this rather funny. 

"Yes," Tarell answered. "And since it's a pretty effective cure for people who like to be stubborn and talk too much, you'd better watch your step."

"Yes, ma'am." He accepted the next mouthful quietly.

"As I was saying..." Tarell turned her attention back to her sister as she continued to feed him. "Ushan said she'd come by to see this one, but I suspect it's for the usual reason."

"Tarell," Sahshell chided, stretching out like a cat on the wide chair she'd seated herself in. "According to their rules, you are as free as they are to go to their houses under the pretence of making a social call and snoop around to see if they're getting ready to bring a crop in."

"I would hate to stoop to their underhanded ways," Tarell said. "But now that I've got this one to go with me and wait on me, I just might start paying calls and see what I can see."

"Then he wasn't any trouble?"

"No, he was a little aristocrat like always." 

Even when Tarell complimented him, she could manage to make it sound like an insult.

"If you do start taking him places with you, you're going to have to start calling him something other than 'that one'," her sister pointed out. "I don't think the members of the Harvest Committee will like having a servant called 'the alien' in their houses."

"I've been giving it some thought. He seems to take it as a punishment that I don't call him by a real name."

Chekov found it very strange to have both women looking directly at him and still speaking about him in the third person as if he wasn't there.

"But I just can't quite give him a real name," Tarell complained. "I mean, he's such a white little alien. It would sound ridiculous to call him by a real person's name."

No wonder they were able to look through him -- he wasn't a "real person".

"I've been thinking about calling him 'Tavic'."

Sahshell nodded. "That might suit him."

Tarell smiled as she fed him another square of tasteless Aldeberan processed food. "I'll bet you don't know what that word means either, do you, offworlder?"

"No..." Chekov searched his linguistic memory banks. "It sounds like a word for a color."

"It's an old word for a particular shade of brown." She caressed his cheek fondly. "The color of your pretty eyes. People up North still use the word, but these Southerners rarely do."

"You ought to call him 'Whitey'," Sahshell suggested.

"I know." Tarell grinned. "That doesn't begin with a 'T'. What do you think of your new name, offworlder?"

Chekov thought the whole proceeding was pretty damned low. He was as much of a real person as they were. He didn't deserve to be named -- as some people on Earth did their pets -- by his coloring. "I do have a name already."

Tarell gave him a look. "Are you going to start that again?"

"It sounds much like a Ganzarite name," he persevered, "and isn't at all difficult to pronounce..."

"Is this what I asked you?"

"No, but since this is a rather important decision, I thought..."

"I think," Tarell said, moving forward to the edge of her seat then reaching behind him and taking a hold on the sash securing his trousers in place, "that it's time to teach you a new word."

The ensign gasped as she pulled him forward over her lap, pressing a large segment of the super sensitive area of the front of his body against her legs. Even through the thin fabric of his clothing and hers, the stimulus was intense and immediate. This violently pleasurable sensation was quickly nullified by the violently unpleasant sensation of the flat of Tarell's hand coming down hard against his backside.

"This," she said, pausing just long enough for burst of pain to fade and the arousal to rekindle before she struck him again, "is what we call a _spanking_." She said the unfamiliar Ganzarite word slowly and clearly, then brought her hand down again for emphasis. "Do you think you can remember that?"

"Ow!" He couldn't seem to get out from under her hand on one side or away from contact with her legs on the other. She had him off balance, holding him down by the neck with the hand that wasn't hitting him. His hands clutched at first this piece of furniture then that, but his mind wouldn't let his muscles pit themselves effectively against Tarell's. His knees weren't quite touching the ground and the bells in his shoes made frantic jingling noises as his feet tried to gain purchase against either floor or air. "Yes, yes! I'll remember!"

"It's a punishment..," she said, continuing both her lecture and bringing her hand down at maddeningly slow intervals, "..we use on small children before they come of age and on adolescent boys who've had the same conditioning as you..."

"Ow!" He desperately wanted to take this degrading punishment stoically, but couldn't. It wasn't so much the impact that made him cry out as it was the shock resulting from the sudden conversion of pleasure to pain. The change was too swift and drastic for his nervous system to handle. It was like being tickled to the point it hurt -- only a million times worse and a billion times more mortifying. "Tarell, please! Ow!"

"...Although you can see that it's a much different punishment for the boys after they've had the conditioning..."

"Ow! Yes, yes!" Blood was pounding violently in all the vital parts of his body. "Oh, please stop, Tarell! Ow! Please, let me up!"

"...It's a very effective punishment..."

"Ow! Chekov could hear Sahshell giggling. "Oh, please, Tarell..."

"...The only reason we stop using it is because the boys eventually get too big..."

"Ow!"

"...to put over a woman's knee. You, on the other hand..."

"Ow! Oh, God!" Rather than being something one could become dulled to, the discomfort became steadily worse and worse. "Tarell, please, please let me up...!"

"... don't look like you'll ever get too big for me to do this to you."

"Ow! Please, please, please, Tarell!" he gasped, frantic in his desire to placate her. "I apologize for whatever I did wrong!"

"Oh? What do you mean, 'whatever' you did wrong? Don't you know what you did wrong?"

"Ow! Yes, I promise not to argue with you any more ever again! Please, let me up! Ow!"

"Well, that's good to hear. Now, what's your name?"

For a moment the only sound in the room was Sahshell's laughter. 

"Ow!"

There was another long pause.

"Ow!"

"Well," Sahshell giggled, "at least he's not arguing."

"I don't know about that," Tarell said, grimly. "Some people can argue by not talking, can't they?"

"Ow!"

"I said, can't they?"

"Ow! Yes! Oh, please, Tarell...!"

"Now, what's your new name?"

"Ow!" Although it was clear that Tarell could continue on like this all day, Chekov wasn't sure how much more he could take. "Tavic... Ow! I said, Tavic!"

"I know," Tarell said, pausing another leisurely interval before bringing her hand down again. "This is for being so fornicating stubborn."

"Ow!"

Sahshell laughed even harder.

"Ow!"

"Do you like your new name?"

"Ow! Yes, ma'am! Yes, ma'am! Please, Tarell, please! Ow! Please, please, let me up! I promise never to be stubborn again."

"I doubt that, but I guess you've learned your lesson for today." After one final swat for good measure, she pulled him back up and onto his knees beside her chair.

Sahshell was still laughing. "I don't think I've ever seen Chood or Toz squirm and squeal any more than that. Look how red he's turned."

Chekov gripped the arm of the chair very tightly. He studied the grain of the unvarnished wood intently and swallowed the tears starting in his throat. His anger could only manifest itself as a dull headache and in this determination not to allow them the pleasure of seeing him cry.

Tarell patted him on the head patronizingly. "Not a very dignified position for my very civilized little offworlder to find himself in, hmm?"

Chekov shook his head, not trusting his voice.

"A very good punishment, isn't it? There's no chance of really hurting you. Probably won't even leave a bruise. Nonetheless..."

...Nonetheless alternating between the two extremes of sensation the Ganzarites' conditioning forced the body to experience left one feeling rather subdued, to say the least. Still, the punishment seemed insufficient cause to induce someone who had been trained to... The ensign had to stop. He couldn't stand to think of his training, what he had been, in the light of the wretched, cowardly creature he was rapidly becoming.

She tilted his head up. "Now, what was it that I named you, offworlder?"

He fixed his gaze on the opposite wall. It did no good to remind himself that his freedom was only an opportunity that might never come away. "Tavic."

"And why did I name you that?"

"It's an archaic word for the color brown... for the color of my eyes."

She turned his face towards her. "For the color of your pretty brown eyes," she corrected. "Say it that way."

Chekov swallowed and tried to convince himself that these were just words. "For the color," he said, choking on them anyway, "of my pretty brown eyes."

"Very good." She laughed triumphantly as she patted the part of his anatomy she'd so recently been abusing. "See, Sahshell, I'm going to get my money's worth out of this little one yet."

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

 

"Stop."

Kirk was sure he hadn't heard correctly. In his opinion, they'd reached and passed the point of no turning back. "What?" he asked breathlessly.

"Just stop." Dusach pushed him off her. She was a councilwoman -- not necessarily one of the most politically powerful, but one of the youngest and most attractive.

"What's the matter?" Kirk gasped as he lay down beside her. She had been polite enough to invite him to her bedchamber, but had like Dargion, the chair of the council, insisted that the room be darkened. 

"I just don't like this," she said bluntly, pulling her inner layer of robe over her. "Are you sure you did this with Dargion?"

"Yes," Kirk replied shortly. He'd never meet a race of women with less respect for the male ego. They didn't even pretend to enjoy sex.

Dusach lifted an incredulous eyebrow. "And she liked it?" 

"You've just got to give it a chance," Kirk said as she rose and continued to dress.

"I have and I don't like it," she replied, matter-of-factly tossing him his pants. "I'll admit there was a thrill of the forbidden at first, but I find having someone on top of me uncomfortable and threatening. I just can't relax."

"Well, I'm sorry." Kirk cast about for some way to salvage the situation. "Listen, are you sure there's nothing more you can tell me about my men?"

"They're dead," Dusach answered flatly.

"I've heard a rumor that at least one of them is being held in a location south of here," Kirk said, pulling a direction out of thin air.

"Don't worry." The woman reached down and patted his face patronizingly. "If he's as bad in bed as you, they'll send him back."

* * * ***** * * *

"Are you just going to sit there and sulk the rest of the day?"

"Sorry." Chekov turned the page of the manual for the Vegan mediscan that he'd been staring at for the past fifteen minutes. After lunch, Tarell had gone back to wrestling with her accounts. She'd ordered him to sit on the floor near her desk where she could keep an eye on him while she worked. He propped the book up on his knees and rested his shoulders against the back wall -- probably inches from the very spot where the security system was. It could have been a million miles away for all he could do about it...

"A person would think from the way you take on that you'd never gotten a beating before in your life," Tarell grumbled, marking down a sum on a clay tablet.

"I hadn't," Chekov answered, keeping his eyes on the page, "before I came here."

"You're lying," Tarell scoffed.

"I'm not," he said, making a strong attempt to sound merely factual -- not letting any of the other more terrible things he was feeling creep into his voice.

She put down her marking stick. "Then how did your mother get you to do things when you were a child?"

It seemed almost obscene for Tarell to ask him such a thing. Even if he couldn't keep her out of his present, his past at least should be inviolate. 

"She told me what wished for me to do," he answered, deciding after a moment that it might serve as a good example for the Ganzarite.

"And if you didn't do it?"

"She would have a serious talk with me."

"I don't see where that would do much."

Chekov shrugged. "You don't know my mother."

Tarell seemed unhappy that she'd not been able to carry her point.

"All I'll say," she said, shaking a warning finger at him, "is that I'm treating you very gently compared to how I could treat you."

Chekov turned the page he hadn't been reading. "I am simply not accustomed to such treatment at all."

"It's completely irrelevant what you're fornicating accustomed to," Tarell replied sharply. "What matters is if I think you merit such treatment. And if I don't see a quick improvement in your attitude you're going to merit some more real soon. Understand?"

Chekov sighed. Something about doing her accounts seemed to put Tarell into a ill-temper. In the future, he made a mental note not to talk to her at all while she was doing them. "Yes, m.."

"And don't call me 'ma'am'," she interrupted. "It sounds so fornicating pretentious that it makes me want to vomit."

'Now she tells me,' he thought, before saying, "What would you prefer I say?"

"Why not just say, 'Yes, Tarell,' in a nice, respectful tone of voice... like everyone else does," she suggested acidly.

"Why don't you..." Chekov stopped and reconsidered his phrasing before continuing. "What I mean to say is that it seems that it would be... less unpleasant if you informed me of such things in advance rather than becoming angry when I make mistakes..."

"I'm not suppose to have to tell you anything, you fornicating idiot," she said, exasperated. "You're supposed to learn to anticipate what I want you to do and what might irritate me."

Chekov couldn't stop himself from making a face. "Like Ushan's servant?"

"Ex-actly!" Tarell nodded. "See, here's the root of our problem. You're determined to stay self-willed. You think that becoming completely responsive to your owner's desires would be a terrible thing."

There was no denying that. "Is it a fate you would envy?" he asked candidly.

Tarell had to ponder a minute before she could come up with her culture's pat rationalization for this. "I'm a landowner and a farmer," she said, a tone of condescension entering her voice. "I try to be the very best landowner and farmer that I can be. If I were a servant, I'm sure I would try to be the best servant I could be. Since you're my servant now and there isn't anything you can do to change that fate, don't you want to try be an excellent servant?"

Chekov considered for a moment. "I don't suppose I'm allowed to say no..."

"No, you're not." Tarell took up her marking stick again. "So shut up and read that manual.... And I do mean _read_ it. Don't just turn the pages every so often like you have been doing."

The ensign sighed. "Yes, m... Tarell."

"Better," she said, going back to her work.

He couldn't do the same. Merely being in the same room with her made it impossible to concentrate. Although part of him would have preferred to be a billion miles away from her, he was intensely aware of her every move. Although a part of him detested her, he found himself anxiously evaluating her mood. He couldn't have read the book if he wanted to.

"All right." Tarell laid her marker down after a moment. "Come here... And don't look at me like I'm about to hit you."

"You aren't, are you?" Chekov asked cautiously before moving.

"Get over here," she ordered impatiently as she closed her book and took a few small items out of her desk. "Stand on my right. Angle yourself in so you can reach anything on the desk easily with your right hand."

"I am not right handed," he informed her.

"But I am," Tarell said as she lined the objects up on the desk in front of her. "It doesn't matter what you think you are. Just do as I tell you... Since you're not interested in that manual, let me see if I can't teach you a little about how to be a good servant..."

Chekov grimaced as he took his place beside her. Previous lessons about being a good servant had all seemed to involve getting hit.

"All right." Tarell put her hands in her lap. "As I raise my hand, give me the object I want."

Chekov stared at her blankly. "Which is?"

Tarell shook her head. "What do you think I want you to do?" she asked as if she expected him to know the answer.

"I don't know," Chekov protested.

The Ganzarite turned in her seat and frowned at him. "You drive me half-crazy being such a smartass all the time, then you expect me to buy it when you play dumb like this?"

Chekov could feel himself blushing as he looked away, realizing that he was playing dumb. He knew exactly what she wanted him to do. "You wish me to attempt to anticipate what you will reach for."

"Right." She turned back towards the desk. "I'll go slow at first..."

He watched as her hand rose to the level of the desk. He tentatively moved his hand at the same speed, watching for any minute indications of where she was heading.

"Tarell," he said, drawing his hand back suddenly. "If I guess incorrectly... are you going to strike me?"

"I'm going to smack the fornication out of you if you don't stop asking stupid questions," she snapped. The Ganzarite then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "No," she answered in a forced, but much calmer tone. "I am not going to hit you... unless it looks like you're not trying... All right?"

"Yes, m... Tarell."

"Okay." She put her hand on her lap, then raised it once more.

She was moving so slowly it was fairly easy to tell that her hand was heading towards the little glass bottle half-filled with blue liquid.

"Good," she said, as he dropped it into her hand. A small thrill of pleasure passed through him. "Let's try again."

Although she moved a little faster this time, his hand still got to the carved wooden cube before hers did. "Very good." She patted his hand approvingly before pushing it away. "But this time put your hand back by your side until I start to move. You can't just stand there waving your hand around until I decide to reach for something." 

"All right," he replied, experimentally using the same slang term she habitually used for the affirmative.

"Very good." Tarell smiled as she reached for another object.

He couldn't help but return her smile, knowing that he was going to guess correctly again.

"Excellent."

Even as she got faster, it wasn't really difficult anticipate her. There were always readable indications in the movement of the small muscles in her hand. Even the tilt of her head gave strong clues. He was even able to effortlessly stay seconds ahead of her when she reached for a receipt written on a small piece of paper instead of one of the objects they'd been working with.

"Excellent! Excellent!" she beamed.

Chekov almost giggled with pleasure. It felt so terribly good for her to be pleased with him for a change. He could now see why Ushan's servant had been so remarkably efficient... The thought of Ushan's nearly invisible man froze his hand mid-motion.

When Tarell's hand hit the small bottle without his, she looked up. "What's the matter?" she asked, her smile fading. "Have you decided to stop trying?"

Chekov pressed his hand to his chest. If he stopped playing her little game, she would hit him again. But if he kept on, he might never be able to quit. The temporary pain of Tarell's displeasure seemed to be preferable in the long run to the addictive pleasure of her approval. "I don't want to be like Ushan's servant," he said slowly, trying to steel himself against what was to come.

Tarell sat there just looking at him for a long time. 

After a moment, Chekov found he couldn't meet her eyes. Although he knew he should be proud of himself for standing up to her, he was so ashamed of displeasing her, he wanted to die.

"You're not anything like Ushan's servant," she said at length. "That is, unless my mother mated with some white man I never knew about..."

Chekov struggled not to smile. He couldn't tell if his sudden levity was because he found her joke -- with its racist overtones -- funny, or if he was just relieved she wasn't angry with him.

"Why don't you laugh?" Tarell asked, propping her right arm up on the back of her chair. Because of his proximity, her arm went part-way around him without touching him. "I've not heard you laugh. You have a pleasant sounding voice. I'm sure you'd have a pleasant sounding laugh.... uh, now what was it that I named you?"

He couldn't bring himself to say it. Brown. It was like a dog's name.

A dangerous smile crept across Tarell's face. "Am I going to have to jog your memory?" she asked, grasping the sash around his waist from behind.

"Tavic," he replied quickly from between clenched teeth. "I think it was Tavic."

"Oh, you _think_ so?" She pushed him forward a little. "You aren't sure?"

"It was Tavic," he said, uneagerly. "I'm sure."

"And why would I call you that?" she asked as playfully as a little boy pulling the wings off a fly.

"Because of the color of my eyes," he answered, almost running the words together.

"What?" She pushed him a little farther forwards. "I don't think I heard that."

"Because," he said deliberately, fixing his gaze on the part of the wall that must be in front of the security system, "of the color of my... pretty brown eyes."

Tarell smiled. "It pleases me so much that I have finally found a punishment you dislike enough to make an effort to avoid."

He remained silent, feeling the less said on that subject, the better.

"You might be brave enough to defy me," she continued, "But you're not brave enough to stand the humiliation of being put over my knee again, are you?"

When he made no answer, she pushed him forward again.

"Are you?"

"No," he replied shortly.

She laughed as she released him. "You know, offworlder, I find it more amusing to own you than I ever thought that I would."

"Because you enjoy hurting people?" he speculated uncharitably.

"Because I enjoy winning," she corrected without rancor. She reached out and brushed his hair away from his face. "I can see that you're giving up. You only pretend to resist me now."

She let her hand travel slowly down his cheek. "Let me win, offworlder. I can guarantee I'll make you enjoy it even more than you enjoy fighting me."

He wondered, among other things, why she'd given him a name if she never intended to call him by it. It was much easier to think about that than about the fact that she was right, he was beginning to cave in. She had more experience at being owner and dominator of other people than he had at being a slave. She'd already hit upon a punishment he'd go to lengths to avoid. It was only a matter of time until she found a form of pleasure he'd long to repeat.

"I have a question," he said, deciding to take advantage of her rare good mood.

"Yes?"

He pointed at the writing on the receipt. "What is sleeping chutzi?"

She picked up the small piece of paper and put it back into the stack of accounts receivable. "Why do you want to know?"

Chekov shrugged. "It doesn't make sense. Chutzi is a mold. Molds don't sleep."

"Of course they do. We call it going dormant now, but in the old days they would say the plant sleeps."

"Oh, yes, of course." The ensign nodded. "But I still don't understand why the Ori-- why the Offworlders would wish to purchase great quantities of it?"

Tarell placed the small objects they'd been working with back in their proper places. "It's none of your concern anymore."

"Sahshell said it was to use against their enemies..." Chekov remembered. "I suppose a blight-carrying plant with a long dormancy period could be used in environmental sabotage, but Federation agricultural experts could easily detect its presence."

"Maybe they only use it against stupid offworlders," Tarell suggested disinterestedly.

"The Orions do have rivals other than the Federation," Chekov said, thinking aloud. "Who would be vulnerable to such tactics?"

"Maybe offworlders so stupid they don't know when to shut up."

"Oh." The ensign realized that this directed at him. "Sorry."

"I've got to go get today's tally before I can finish this," she said, rising. "Come on. You'll go with me. You've not seen the inside of the barns yet, have you?"

Chekov's heart suddenly skipped a beat. Here at long last was his opportunity to be alone in this room. "I'd rather stay here, if I may?" he asked meekly.

Tarell laughed and put her hands on her hips. "What's the matter? You afraid of running into Tirst?"

"He does not wish me well," he replied, hoping she'd continue to mistake his excitement for terror. "Neither does your sister."

"Don't worry about either of them," the Ganzarite reassured him. "I'm not going to let happen to you what happened to the last one."

"The last one?" he repeated, a little real concern entering his voice. "What exactly happened to the last one?"

"Don't worry about it," Tarell ordered him instead of answering.

"If I could stay here..." he pressed, trying to look as timid as she thought he was.

"Oh, all right," she relented, gathering up her counting strings. "It'll be faster if I go by myself. Read that manual and don't get into any trouble. I'll be back in a very short time."

"Yes, Tarell," he said docilely, his heart racing.

He sat down at his former place with his back against the back wall and opened the book to a random point. Satisfied with this, Tarell headed for the door. Chekov forced himself not to move as soon as it clicked behind her. After wasting a few precious seconds on the possibility that she might come back for something she'd forgotten, the ensign carefully placed the open book on the floor where it could be quickly retrieved. Getting up on his knees, he turned and began to feel for a hidden latch. Unlike the room's other walls, the section behind the alcove that contained Tarell's desk was made of wood \-- actually strips of barbran stalk. His hand finally hit on a loose piece of decorative molding. It was attached to a string that when pulled forward raised a small section of panelling. In the hidden recess gleamed the red and green lights of a cheap, obviously second-hand, Andorian scan unit.

"I don't believe it," Chekov said, sitting back on his heels. He'd somehow expected something more elaborate, more imposing, but it was quite appropriate that he was being held captive with the aid of a simple device Andorian farmers used to keep track of their herd beasts. Apparently the Ganzarites had planted a tag readable by this machine on him somewhere. If he could find the tag, then he wouldn't have to worry about the scanner at all.

"Probably internal," he decided after a moment's contemplation. After all, Tarell had shown no particular concern that any item of clothing they'd given him remained on him at all times.

Chekov closed the hatch hiding the scanner. Keeping one eye and ear on the door, he moved to Tarell's desk cursing the loud jingle of the bells in his shoes. A four digit security code had to be entered before he could access the scanner's controls. He was betting that the code and a piece of wood that would allow him to operate the metal-plated machine could be found somewhere on her desk.

The code was not written inside the front of her ledger as he thought it would be. In fact, it wasn't written in any of the obvious places he looked. As Chekov opened drawer after unlocked drawer, he began to get nervous. Not only was his time beginning to run out, but he'd learned from his few experiences with petty theft that one's likelihood of being discovered increased with the number of items one touched. One slightly out of place nick-nack could be enough to alert a suspicious mind like Tarell's.

"Other men have tried to do this," he told himself as he continued to search. "She's put the code somewhere she thinks they would not look."

At that moment, he opened the drawer where she kept her various instruments of torture. He quickly re-closed it, only glancing at its contents. After doing so, an idea occurred to him. It was a sadistic idea -- but then again, Tarell was nothing if not a sadist.

Taking in a deep breath, he reopened the drawer and forced himself to take out the most hideous of all the hideous items therein -- the long black quirt. From its handgrip dangled a cord. On that cord was a line of four small knots.

"Two, seven, one, six," he read aloud.

Gingerly he replaced the quirt and closed the drawer.

"Fornication," he said in Ganzarite, shakily releasing the breath he held.

Out of one of the upper drawers, he took a long wooden hairpin then returned to the wall. Chekov could feel the beginnings of a terrible headache stirring inside his skull as he opened the secret compartment again. He was surprised that the conditioning had let him get this far without warning pains. The trick must be, he thought punching in the access code with the blunt end of the long hairpin, to keep one's mind on what one was doing rather than on the implications of what one was doing.

Reasoning that there was a better chance of his tampering being detected sooner if he simply turned off the machine, he requested a list of subjects. Guessing that he was the last item on the list of surveillance targets, he deleted the final entry. A dot separated from most of the others on scanner's small screen disappeared.

"One less herd beast to worry about," the ensign comforted the machine as he returned it to normal functioning with a last tap from the hairpin and closed the cover of its secret chamber. 

He thought of taking off his shoes as he jingle-jangled his way back to the desk to return the hairpin. All that got him was a sharp pain right above his left eye.

'Oh, no,' he thought, dropping the hairpin back into its niche. 'If I can't even think of taking off these shoes, then how am I going to plan my...'

Whatever it was that was monitoring his thoughts, gave him a jolt so strong it stopped him in his tracks momentarily. It was if it were trying to make up for its lack of action while he disarmed with the security system.

Thinking about this while he weakly returned to his original position seated against the back wall, Chekov decided that the conditioning hadn't interfered with him looking for and manipulating the security system because Tarell had never actually forbidden him from doing so. On the other hand, she'd made herself quite clear about she felt about his contemplating....

"Uuuh." Chekov groaned as another blinding burst of pain shot through his head. He picked up the mediscan manual and willed himself not to panic. There had to be a way around the conditioning. He'd been able to think of... being elsewhere before...

"Yes," he said aloud. Doing so seemed to make it easier to focus his thoughts. "I was thinking of Lt. Uhura... of her orders that I must see that nothing happens to Commander Ghyka. If I... go elsewhere, it will be to fulfil my duty to her."

Whatever it was that was in charge of giving him pain was confused by this. Chekov concentrating on conjuring up a vivid mental picture of the lieutenant. When he tried projecting how pleased the communications officer would be when he returned with Ghyka at his side, the intruder in his brain was duped enough to send a tingling wave of pleasure down his spine.

"Oh, my." Chekov had to pause a moment to catch his breath. The pleasure he received from merely imagining how he could please someone he truly liked and respected was at least equal to the sort of sensation he involuntarily felt when Tarell touched him. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to be physically intimate with someone he was actually attracted to. Then again... he realized that he actually could imagine....

"Oh, my God," Chekov breathed, as his conditioning lavishly rewarded him for a fond memory of an ex-girlfriend. A man with a reasonable command of his cognitive powers could lead quite a happy life completely on his own on this planet. Perhaps that's why they were all so quiet... If Tarell had been the least bit kind, he knew that by now he'd not be able to....

"...Think about following my orders from Lt. Uhura," Chekov corrected himself quickly. He couldn't.... go find Commander Ghyka -- as would so please the lieutenant -- right now. Tarell would be back any moment. In order to maximize the advantage he'd gained by deleting himself from the surveillance field, he needed a good head start before he was discovered missing. The scanner had a range of several miles. If it were turned on while he was still in scanning range....

"...Then Lt. Uhura would not be pleased," Chekov concluded -- safely he thought -- but kibitzing presence inside his head punished him with a wave of depression. Unlike sensations of pain or pleasure, the ensign could not distinguish this from his own natural responses. He sighed deeply. "This is going to be terribly difficult."

As if to make things even more difficult, Tarell re-entered the room. He couldn't stop himself from looking up at her guiltily.

The Ganzarite put her hands on her hips and frowned. "Don't look at me that way," she ordered irritably. "A person would think a four-headed horned beast had just walked in."

"Sorry," Chekov apologized, quickly returning his gaze to the mediscan manual.

"Come here." She beckoned him forward as she strode to the middle of the room. "And bring that book."

The ensign complied cautiously, carefully schooling his thoughts. Just one unexplained spasm of pain would betray him.

"Have you finished it yet?" Tarell said, holding her hand out for the manual.

"No, ma'am." Chekov focused his eyes humbly on the floor and folded his hands behind his back. "I am afraid not."

Tarell rapped him lightly on the head with the book. "I thought I told you not to call me 'ma'am'."

"Yes, m-- Tarell," he replied obediently. "I am sorry."

"Don't forget again." The Ganzarite paced a slow circle around him, thumbing through the pages. "All right. How do you interface this unit with a Model Five diagnostic table?"

"Uh... uh.." Chekov frowned. Although he'd read very little of the manual, he'd assumed he'd be able to fake a passing knowledge of the mediscan's operations. "I do not think that I have read that far yet."

"It's on the third page, you little liar," she admonished, holding the book up in front of his face.

"Yes, but this is only a summary of subject matter to be covered in the book," the ensign pointed out. "You see, interfacing is covered in Chapter Ten. I have only read as far as Chapter...ah, Three."

The Ganzarite eyed him narrowly over the top of the book. "I think you'd better start reading a little faster. I'm sure you're able to, aren't you?"

"I am having some difficulty concentrating," Chekov confessed.

"Oh?" Tarell smiled her awful smile. "Do you need some added incentive to make you try harder?"

"No, ma'am," the ensign answered quickly, fastening his eyes on the tops of his shoes. "I will simply make greater efforts to focus in the future."

"All right." She resumed her pacing. "What does a reading above 4.99 on the fifth dial from the right indicate?"

"Unacceptable levels of.. umm... radiation exposure?" Chekov guessed. If only there were some way he could contrive to be alone for a few hours... Then again, he'd already had to wait all day for the chance to be alone for what couldn't have been much more than ten minutes. 

His answer must have at least been close because Tarell's only response was to turn the page. "What does a reading of over 40 on the second indicator mean?"

"Uh...." He squinted as he tried to remember the layout of the mediscan. "Oh, yes. That would indicate that I'm running a high fever."

"And what should I do about that?"

"That would depend on the other readings..." A bad idea occurred to Chekov. There was one place and time when she consistently left him alone... "..and other external indications you may have of the cause of the fever. There is a chart..."

"I see the chart."

He studied the wood grain on the floor as he listened to the sound of her footsteps and the rustle of more pages being turned.

She had left him alone -- twice -- in her bedroom...

'Exhausted, disoriented, unmotivated to do anything that might displease her,' he reminded himself silently, 'in a room on the second story, wearing nothing... No, it doesn't seem likely under such circumstances that I would attempt to...'

"How about when there's no vertical movement on the blue and white indicator?"

"No brain activity," Chekov answered glumly. "I'm dead."

"But it says here that I should try a cardial stimulator."

"Yes, I hope you would."

"But if you're dead, I don't see the point."

"If you act quickly enough under the correct circumstances, you might revive me." Another bad thought occurred to the ensign. The combination of the primitive living conditions of this planet, his body's lack of tolerance for its various diseases, his owner's unfamiliarity with medical procedures, and the strain put on his metabolism by all the medication she was feeding him didn't promise a particularly long future for him on Ganzar. "Tarell, how long do you expect me to live?"

"Oh..." She paused to consider. "You seem to be young still. You'll last at least another forty or fifty seasons."

Forty or fifty seasons on Ganzar only translated into about twenty to twenty-five Earth years. Staying on this planet meant cutting his life expectancy nearly in half. He'd be an old man at forty-five and probably dead by fifty. "Tarell..."

"Yes?"

"I was wondering if you would like to..." Chekov suddenly lost his nerve mid-utterance.

She turned to him. "What?"

He bit his lip, then returned his gaze to the floor. "Nothing."

Intrigued, Tarell stepped in closer. "What were you about to say?"

He swallowed hard and avoided her eyes. "I'm afraid I was about to make an improper suggestion."

" _You_ make an improper suggestion?" She laughed. "Go on, offworlder. I'd like to hear your idea of an improper suggestion."

He took in a deep breath. "I was wondering if you..."

"...If I would wish to...?" she prompted when he faltered.

"To... to..." He couldn't stop himself from blushing furiously. Good idea or bad, it would seem he was committed to going through with it now. "...to go upstairs."

"Upstairs?" Tarell repeated. 

"Yes," he answered to the toes of his shoes.

"To my bedroom?"

"Yes," he choked out.

"And do what?" A tone of amusement had entered her tone.

"Uh..." Tarell used so many vulgar terms for having sex is was hard to think of an inoffensive one. "And... do ...what we usually do," he finished awkwardly.

"You mean have sex?"

He closed his eyes and nodded. She sounded amused in that way that always seemed to spell trouble for him.

Tarell crossed her arms. "And you think that's improper?"

He cleared his throat. "I was unsure if you would consider it within my prerogative to make such a suggestion."

"I'm not in favor of you making any suggestions to me about anything," Tarell replied, laying the manual aside. "But you can ask me if I'd like to do it."

Chekov nodded. "I see."

"Well," she said, after waiting a moment. "Go on. Ask me if I'd like to do it."

"Would you care to go upstairs?" he said politely to the floor.

"And have sex with you?" she prompted after a moment.

The ensign nodded instead of repeating after her.

Tarell tipped his chin up with a fingertip and smiled at him. "No."

An incredible wave of depression hit him. "Oh," he said, crushed.

"You see, it's just not the way I feel about you," she said, mocking his earlier words. "I feel the base of our kinship is just too unreal."

"Oh," he repeated, wanting to sink under the tiled floor.

She folded her arms triumphantly. "So how does it feel to be the one being rejected for a change?"

"Not very pleasant," he replied, hanging his head.

She stepped back to enjoy the full length view of his suffering. "You see, this is what you've been doing that's improper. You have no right to reject me. It makes me feel bad... Probably not as bad as you feel right now, but I still don't like it."

He doubted that there was anything short of killing one of her close friends that he could do to make her feel as badly as he was feeling just then.

"All right." She indicated with a jerk of her head he was to follow as she walked over and opened the door. "Come on."

He could tell from her smug expression as she held the door open for him that this wasn't over. She had him where she wanted him and wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to engage in her favorite pastime -- teaching the know-it-all offworlder a lesson. He reproached himself as he followed her up the stairs for being stupid enough to try such a thing. After all, making a sexual advance on a woman was a risky business under the best circumstances. Even the average non-Ganzarite woman was well equipped to inflict incredible misery under such circumstances. Tarell, he knew, was going to make him pay for every unkind or unenthusiastic thing he'd ever said to her in ways too cruel to imagine.

'Who needs to imagine?' he thought to himself as she opened the door to her room and motioned him inward. 'I will be living them in a moment.'

He followed her pointing finger to the bed wishing he'd taken a moment to consider before he'd spoken.

"You're getting undressed?" she asked as he automatically began to unfasten the shoulder seams of his shirt.

"No, ma'am," he replied, sitting down on the edge of the bed and folding his hands in his lap. What could he have been thinking of? Of course there was going to be a lecture first.

"Ma'am?"

"Tarell," he corrected himself, looking at his thumbs. He would have never predicted that under such circumstances he would prefer to call her by a deferential title. Doing so seemed to lend a comforting psychological distance. Calling her by her first name made it seem as though the two of them were friends.

She crossed to him and lifted his chin. "You haven't changed your mind, have you?"

"I feel very badly about this," he replied truthfully.

"About being displeasing and rude to me?"

The ensign nodded -- even though there were several other things that he felt even worse about. Being there at all, for instance.

"You don't deserve to feel good," she said, withdrawing her hand. "For a person who prides himself on being civilized and polite, you've been very ill-behaved and inconsiderate of my feelings."

He would have liked to have argued or at least ignored her, but each word sunk him ever lower into a state of despondency.

"If I have sex with you now, it would be as though I am rewarding you for making this half-hearted offer." As he feared, she seemed to be working herself up towards anger. "You don't deserve to be rewarded for realizing that you actually want to do something that you should be eager and grateful for the chance to do. Tirst was begging me to have sex with him when I saw him just a few minutes ago. Other men I own only dream that I might one day so favor them. But you \-- ugly, undeserving, impudent thing that you are -- act like having sex with me is some kind of horrible chore."

Chekov put his repulsively white-skinned hands behind his back and stared at the floor instead.

"As of now that attitude stops," she said sharply. "Do you understand me? You're going to have to do much, much better than this or, my fine little offworlder, you're going to pay the consequences.... And that's the next thing we're going to work on -- this attitude that you never deserve to be punished for anything. As long as you act like a spoiled child, you'll be treated like a child. It's about time you accept your responsibilities as a man. And your prime responsibility is to make me happy. Do you understand? Look at me when I speak to you."

"Yes, Tarell," he answered, but his voice came out as a cracked whisper and he could only force his eyes up to the level of her waist.

"Perhaps in the Offworld, men are encouraged to disregard, deceive and manipulate women -- like you constantly attempt to do. But here it is unacceptable. Do you understand?"

The ensign nodded. He was still looking at her as he'd been instructed to, but his eyes had fallen down to the level of her ankles.

Tarell crossed her arms. "I don't think I can stand to be in the same room with you, let alone have sex with you."

He would have thought that there were some limits to how badly she could make him feel by rejecting him. It surprised him that they hadn't hit that point yet.

"I have work to finish," she informed him coldly. "And since I don't want to be around you, you will stay here. You can take a shower or take a nap or just sit there and sulk until I come back, but I suggest when I do come back you be prepared to demonstrate a proper attitude and apologize to me for your insulting behavior. If you don't..."

He thought she intended just to let her threat hang in the air, but she jerked his head up by the chin. "You know what will happen, don't you?"

"Something unpleasant?" Chekov guessed.

She brought her face close to his. "Something very un-fornicating-pleasant," she said through her teeth before pushing him roughly away.

The hard soles of her shoes beat a loud tattoo on the floor. The ensign flinched away from the sound of the door slamming behind her as he would from a blow. He could see and hear her withdraw the cord that would have allowed him to open the door from this side. He was locked in. Her footsteps banged down the stairs.

He tried to comfort himself by telling himself that she'd only said the things she had for the effect she knew the words and her tone of voice would have on him. She'd intended to intimidate him and coerce him into behaving as she wished. Unfortunately, knowing that didn't make him feel any less intimidated or persuaded to behave as she wanted.

"I.. I... h-h-ha...." The conditioning wouldn't let him use the word "hate" even when he was alone. "I don't like you, Tarell," he said to the door instead. "I don't like you at all. Nothing you said about me was the truth."

His words echoed hollowly in the empty room.

He banged his fist against his leg to keep himself from dissolving into foolish tears. "I don't habitually lie to women," he insisted to an absent audience, "or try to manipulate them... although I have tried to do both to Tarell. But that's not because she's a woman, not because I feel myself to be superior to her. I simply want to...."

A blinding headache reminded him that he couldn't think directly about what he wanted to do. Rubbing his temples, he got up and walked to the small green reflecting glass mounted on the wall.

"And I am not..." He meant to say "ugly", but the reflection that stared back at him took him by surprise. It had sickly-looking pale skin and stringy short hair. It was swathed in layers of clothing that would have looked graceful on a larger man. The back of the hand that it put over its misshapen mouth and half of its too wide jaw was covered with garish-looking black hair. Only its eyes, under thick, unattractive eyebrows, looked like a Ganzarite's.

"I'm hideous," Chekov decided, turning away. 

Not knowing what he was going to do, he slid a box out from under the upright chest that contained Tarell's garments. In this box were the three other changes of outfit she'd bought for him. Either going out the window or taking a shower necessitated a change of clothes.

"Lt. Uhura does not find my behavior unacceptable," he consoled himself as he sat down in front of the box and untied his belled shoes. "And she would never let a person's appearance prejudice her against them."

He paused. He'd come to a point where he had to make a decision. If he was staying, he'd be putting on another fancy white outfit. If he was leaving, the plainer clothes he'd been sold in would probably be more sensible.

"I think that Lt. Uhura would like me to wear these," he said to himself aloud, picking up the simple shirt and brown pants. "Green is one of her favorite colors."

Although Tarell had never forbidden from wearing those clothes, there were uneasy stirrings from the back of his neck. To quiet them, Chekov summoned all the happy memories of Uhura that he could. He found himself smiling as he remembered her singing and laughing at a recent birthday party.

"I must see her again," he decided, loosening the knots along his shoulder. 

He still wasn't expert enough to unfasten all the knots that Tarell had tied earlier, but managed to slacken enough of them to allow him to extricate himself from the silken clutches of the garment. He fastened the more elementary closures of the green shirt and brown pants with the number three knot that Tarell had taught him.

"Lt. Uhura would like this knot best," he defended himself as he tied down the front placket. "It is very neat and effective."

And not, he noted as he took a step forward, quiet as secure as the combination of more complicated knots a Ganzarite would use. Assuring himself that Lt. Uhura would like these even better, he re-tied a few of the most strategic knots in familiar, reliable patterns he'd learned as a boy on his and the communications officer's shared home world. This done, he looked at his bare feet. They would have to stay that way. No shoes would be less conspicuous than belled shoes.

"As if a short, white-skinned alien has any hope of being inconspicuous at all," he said ruefully.

The nagging pain in his head resumed in force when he looked at the room's two windows.

"I must go find Commander Ghyka," he reminded his internal discomfort factory. "Lt. Uhura would be so pleased with me if I would climb out that window."

Using a wooden hairpin from Tarell's dresser, Chekov disengaged the simple metal latch on the inside of one of the windows. Putting his fingers gingerly on the glass, he pushed it open. Beyond it were the limbs of a tall tree. The tree spread out nearly touching the house on one side and extending over the stone fence separating the yard from the street on the other.

Chekov chewed on his lower lip. If the limbs were less sturdy or more slippery than they looked, he could easily fall and break his neck. While he was considering negatives, he thought he might as well admit to himself that he didn't really have enough time to do this anyway. Tarell would probably only give him around a half hour before she came back to torture him. In that time he couldn't get out of the range of her scanner without means of transport other than his own feet.

He swallowed hard. He couldn't stay. Tarell had his weaknesses pinpointed too well. He was too close to a complete capitulation to risk delay. He had to go on the hopes that he would find transport. At the least, a half hour would probably give him enough time to find and free Ghyka.

"That is what is most important," he said, quieting the internal warnings that activated when he stepped up on the window's sill. "I must see that Commander Ghyka gets back to the lieutenant."

Holding on to a created mental picture of Uhura rapturously welcoming the two of them back on board the ship, Chekov grabbed a sturdy looking nearby limb. It sagged dangerously as it accepted his full weight, but held as he quickly moved hand over hand towards the tree's trunk. Once he reached it, he was able to stand on one of the larger limbs and catch his breath.

"Lt. Uhura would probably think I was insane for doing that," he admitted looking back to see if he'd aroused any notice from Tarell's house. "But she would still be very, very pleased."

Once on the other side of the trunk, he climbed outwards and down toward the stone wall. From the top of the wall was only an easy drop of less than six feet to the dirt street. He landed solidly on his feet. He looked around for passersby as he dusted himself off. This part of the street seemed deserted. It was getting close to dusk. Probably very few people would still be out at this time of day in a rural village like this one. Unfortunately, to get to where he thought Ghyka was, he had to pass straight though the middle of town.

"Uhura would very proud of me for making the attempt," he assured himself as he set off in that direction, wishing for beautiful brown skin like the lieutenant's that would camouflage him better.

A few houses down from Tarell's, he saw a cart filled with sacks of something. He hurried towards it. The occasional stone in the road reminded him just how long it had been since he'd walked barefoot. He resisted the urge to break out into a run as he neared the cart, telling himself that was just pure counter-productive panic on his part. If this was going to be anything other than a completely futile gesture of defiance, he had to keep his head.

He didn't pause to find out what was in the sacks. He simply plucked one off the back the cart as he passed without breaking stride. It was very light. It rustled like leaves. Probably part of someone's harvest.

"Marvelous," he thought, hefting it over his shoulder in a way that blocked most of his face from view. "Now I'm also a thief."

His thoughts began to stray dangerously towards what would happen to him should he be caught as he neared the center of the town. 'That's nothing next to what they do to you if they catch you outside these walls,' Tirst had said. Well, he was most definitely outside Tarell's walls.

"It doesn't matter what Tarell thinks," he whispered to himself. "All that matters is that Lt. Uhura would be very, very happy with me."

To combat the throbbing in his temples, he forced himself to keep generating mental images of the _Enterprise's_ chief communications officer. Instead of speculating on the horrible vengeance Tarell would doubtless bring upon him, he made himself focus on how much he liked and respected the lieutenant. 

A cart rumbled up the dirt road ahead of him. Although he could feel the thud of his heart in his throat, Chekov kept his thoughts on Uhura -- how kind she was, how beautiful. 

The cart passed without slowing in the gathering gloom. 

The ensign found himself approaching the one landmark he knew in this town -- the barn where he was sold to Tarell. He crossed the street to avoid it. To counter the image his mind automatically produced of the fat woman waddling out into the street, spotting him, dragging him inside and treating him to a hypo full of poison, he made himself imagine Uhura doing something counter-actively pleasant - kissing him.

'Not a good choice,' he admonished himself, biting his lip to keep from giggling. 'Good for morale, but very bad for concentration.'

Figuring that good morale was rather important at this time, he indulged himself a moment longer. After a moment, though, he realized that his morale had gotten so good, he'd stopped walking.

"That's enough," he reproved himself, shifting his sack of leaves and setting off again. "I don't think the lieutenant would approve of that... It's Ghyka she wants. I must find Ghyka."

From the information he'd managed to gather, the intelligence officer was in a red house that couldn't be seen from this street.

"Oh, wonderful," the ensign said, taking time to think for the first time why this would be a problem for someone searching at street level. He slowed down and looked up at the houses surrounding him. At least the second story was visible on all of them. "Why wouldn't I be able to see the house from the street?"

"Because," he answered himself, as he spotted a likely candidate, "it has a very high stone fence, is only one story tall and is set far back from the road."

He set off for the low roof he could see peeking over the top of the most massive fence on the street as fast as he dared. He knew that he wouldn't have a lot of time to check out another location. Tarell's inevitable discovery that he was missing drew nearer with each passing second. Also as the sunlight faded, a red house would become increasingly hard to distinguish. 

Another problem didn't occur to him until he stood looking up at the eight or nine feet of stone the owner of this lot had erected.

"How do I get over this?" he asked himself, letting his bag of leaves drop.

There were plenty of trees inside the fence, but none outside. After looking around a moment, the ensign crossed to the point where a neighbor's barbran stick fence met the stone fence. The stick fence was only about three feet tall. It groaned and cracked under his weight but provided a sufficient boost to allow him to find footholds in the stone fence.

He wished briefly for his boots as the rough edges of the stones cut into his feet. Somehow, though, real pain didn't seem that bad compared to the amplified torment he had suffered under Tarell's hands.

There was a narrow ledge at the top of the fence. He crouched there, looking at the crimson walls of the large house inside the fence. His conditioning rewarded him with a burst of pleasure for having gotten this far in his quest.

"Now to find Ghyka," he whispered, crawling towards the house along the top of the stone fence.

He saw that he could cross to the red house the same way he'd left Tarell's. As in his owner's yard, there were trees whose limbs extended both over the top of the fence and over the roof of the house.

Either the trees in this person's yard were of a hardier species, he noted with satisfaction as he swung out onto one, or he was getting better at this activity. He'd never been much at climbing trees, but this particular one was fairly easy, with big broad limbs that he could walk along while steadying himself with his hands on a limb just above his head. 

He dropped carefully onto the thatched roof. Pieces of straw-like material stabbed at his fingers and toes as he crawled towards the edge on all fours. The ensign bit his lip as if that could muffle the crunching noise he made as he moved. From the edge of the roof, he intended to find a window to enter, but looking into the backyard, he saw a sight that stopped him cold.

Tied with arms extended to the side of one of the outbuildings on the far side of the yard was a dark-skinned man with hair shorter than a Ganzarite in this part of the continent would ever wear theirs.

"Ghyka." Chekov smiled as a pleasing warmth spread like sunshine over him. "I've found Ghyka."

His elation faded as he paused to think what the intelligence officer could be doing tied to the side of a barn. There was a Ganzarite male sitting on the ground near Ghyka. It looked like he was posted there as a guard.

"That's strange," the ensign said to himself. If the woman who had purchased the commander was equipped similarly to Tarell, a guard would be superfluous. A scanner could more reliably report an attempted escape. 

Chekov closed his eyes as the implications of that thought hit him. Whoever abducted Ghyka probably tagged him \-- as the ensign had been tagged -- so his movements were traceable by a scan unit. Alarms would sound in the house as soon as the commander left the acceptable monitoring perimeter. 

Chekov sat down heavily on the roof and put his head in his hands. There were quite a few things he hadn't bothered to think through with the tiny segment of his brain he could use painlessly. This rescue attempt was beginning to stand out as one of the most rash and ill-considered things he'd done in his long history of doing rash and ill-considered things. He was beginning to feel almost as idiotic as Tarell accused him of being.

The thought of the Ganzarite made his mouth go dry. Very soon now she would be entering her empty bedchamber and finding a pair of belled shoes sitting in front of an open window...

He swallowed hard and looked up at the stars. "The lieutenant wouldn't want me to quit now," he encouraged himself. "Perhaps the presence of a guard indicates a less efficient method of surveillance is being employed."

Chekov carefully made his way down to the lowest edge of the roof. Hanging onto that edge, he dropped down to the ground and began a quiet approach to the back of the Ganzarite watching Ghyka.

The ensign thought he'd surely given himself away when the thick stick he lifted from the top of a neatly stacked pile of wood caused a smaller stick to clatter to the ground. The guard only shifted in his place as though incompletely roused from a doze.

Ghyka made no move. This worried Chekov. As he crept closer, he could see the extent of the damage done to the intelligence officer. Bleeding welts crisscrossed the commander's back. Chekov began to fear that Ghyka had died either of his wounds or the shock of the unnaturally amplified pain he'd feel from them. Convincing himself that he could see the intelligence officer's back moving with the intake of breath, the ensign crept up behind the guard.

At the sound of the stick of wood connecting with the back of the guard's head, Ghyka's eyes opened. "Chekov?"

Chekov couldn't help grinning delightedly. "Commander."

"Get me down," the intelligence officer whispered.

"Oh... Yes, sir." Chekov sprang belatedly into action, rolling the guard aside. He bit his lip to keep from smiling at the waves of pleasure coursing through him as he struggled with the tight knots around Ghyka's wrists and upper arms.

"Where are the others?" Ghyka's whisper was cracked and weak, but his eyes were alert. "How did you find me? They removed my implants."

"I know, sir." The knots were very intricate. It didn't help that the growing darkness was making it difficult to see them. "They took me at the same time. I'm afraid there aren't any others."

"They took you?" The intelligence officer was as insultingly incredulous as a Ganzarite. "Then how are you resisting the conditioning?"

Chekov felt like the knots were tightening instead of loosening under his fingers. "Lt. Uhura told me I had to make sure you got back to the ship safely. I am concentrating on following her orders."

Ghyka grinned. "Well, bless her beautiful little heart." 

"Yes," the ensign agreed, smiling. "She is very beautiful. A most kind and intelligent person."

"Ensign," the commander prompted, as Chekov ceased moving altogether as he contemplated the finer qualities of his benefactress.

"Sorry, sir." The ensign turned hastily back to the stubborn knots. "If you don't mind my asking, sir, how are you resisting them?"

"The experimental drug works," Ghyka informed him as he was finally able to wriggle one wrist free. "It killed the organic part of the control device within the first twelve hours."

"Control device?" Chekov had to stop and put his hands to his temples. The commander's words seemed familiar in a way that hurt to think about. "Half organic?"

"Don't think about it," Ghyka ordered. "They must have programmed you to forget the briefing you were given on the device and how it works."

"I was briefed?" It was impossible not to think about such a thing. He wondered what other subjects had been erased from his mind. He wondered what this "device" was. Ghyka made it sound as though something had been implanted in his body... something half organic....

"Don't think about it, ensign!" the intelligence officer hissed sharply as the ensign's face contorted with pain. "That's an order, Mister!"

"Yes, sir," Chekov answered, shakily returning to the knots. After that last jolt, it was quite easy to not think. His mind felt as blank as a clean slate.

"Try to think about something else," Ghyka suggested as the ensign freed his left arm. "I suppose you've seen plenty evidence of Orion interference."

"Yes, sir. The woman who..." The words "owns me" almost fell from Chekov's lips. "... who I was with grows what they call 'sleeping chutzi' for the Orions. It is a mold with a long dormancy that causes a blight. I think the Orions are using it for environmental sabotage. Against who, I don't know."

"Against the Klingons," Ghyka replied, sounding certain. 

"But I thought..."

"Shhhh," The intelligence officer silenced him, putting a finger to his lips. 

Chekov put his questions on hold as the two of them working together rapidly freed Ghyka's other arm. The intelligence officer took a moment to painfully flex his shoulders, then motioned for the ensign to follow him to the rock wall.

Chekov marveled at the way Ghyka, despite the terrible wounds on his back, boosted the ensign up to the top of the wall then climbed up himself unassisted. Chekov began to believe the stories he'd heard about intelligence agents being superhuman as he climbed down the other side of the fence into some unknown neighbor's yard.

Ghyka winced as he landed next to Chekov. "Good old Ganzarite hospitality," he said, gingerly touching his back. 

"Are you all right, sir?" 

"Ask me that when we're on the _Enterprise_ , Ensign," Ghyka replied, then pointed to the small stick fence marking the end of the lot they were in. "This way."

Beyond the fence were trees, cultivated fields and in the distance, small hills. Once they were over the fence and into a thicket of trees, Chekov felt he could breathe freely for the first time in a long time.

"I can understand the motivation for the Orions to destroy Klingon agricultural colonies," he said, giving vent to the question that had been burning in his mind for the past few minutes. "And I suppose the Klingons might have insufficient technology to prevent or detect such sabotage, but, sir, I thought we were here to investigate rumors of a Klingon presence."

Ghyka leaned heavily against a tree. "Ensign, if there are any Klingons on Ganzar, they are here in the same capacity that you and I have been here for the past few days. This is an Orion-run show."

"Special Intelligence has known all along that the Orions...?"

"We've had indications, but we didn't know what or how it was being done. This sleeping chutzi stuff is the best explanation I've heard. You see, we've had great difficulty investigating here. We can get people in, but we can't always get them back out. Escaping from Ganzar is..."

The spasm of pain nearly crossed Chekov's eyes.

"Ensign?" Ghyka put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"I'm fine, sir." The ensign rubbed his aching head. "Just don't use that word."

The intelligence officer paused and looked at him for a long moment. "Ensign, I'm going to be completely honest with you right now."

This didn't sound promising. "Yes, sir?"

"As long as that control device is on you, you can be traced."

Chekov got a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach. "Yes, sir."

Ghyka rubbed his wrists and studied the night sky. "If I can get them, I need samples of this 'sleeping chutzi'. Also the electronic equipment in the house you were in \-- I suppose there was a computer as well as the security system? \-- I could use them to construct a beacon to signal the _Enterprise_."

There was something awful about the way the intelligence officer was phrasing these things. "Are you suggesting that we break into Tarell's house?" the ensign asked, hoping that was the extent of the awfulness.

"If there's a chance you've not been missed, you need to go back," Ghyka said mercilessly. "We'll have a better chance at getting what we need if one of us is working from the inside."

Chekov swallowed hard. "That isn't going to be easy," he said slowly.

"It will be easier than you think." The woman's voice came from behind them.

Chekov turned in time to receive a drug-tipped dart full in his chest.

"Commander, run!" he managed to gasp before the first stars of the Ganzarite evening faded to a wall of solid black.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note here to let my regular readers know that I have started a tumblr blog now.  
> [teegar on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/teegar)  
> Follow me there to get previews of what I'm working on now -- Jane and I are doing a major re-write of our novel "Kidnapped." Lots of new material!


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

"So once more it comes down to the issue of male servitude," one of the council members was saying from across the long table in the gas-lit assembly chamber.

Kirk wondered why they bothered to have these evening sessions. He knew he was almost always too tired to turn the late meetings to any productive use. He privately supposed these wealthy city dwellers had night sessions simply to show off the building's expensive gas lighting. 

"According to your Prime Directive," the honorable member was continuing, "we are free to conduct the affairs of our planet however we may chose, aren't we?"

"Yes," Kirk acceded reluctantly, knowing what was coming next. "However.."

"Then if members of our society find it economically expedient and socially acceptable to hold men as property, they have every right to do so under your laws, don't they?"

Kirk took in a deep breath before answering. It might just be his imagination, but it seemed that since he'd begun having relations with various council members, all of them seemed more bold and aggressive in their verbal attacks against his positions in meetings like these.

"Rights and freedom are the reasons why the Federation finds male..." Kirk hated that this language of a slave holding people didn't have direct translation for the word 'slavery.' "...Finds the holding of men as servants morally repugnant."

"They would do the same to us if they could," his old friend Dusach asserted sharply. "Women in the tribes of the frozen North are treated little better than pack animals."

Kirk cast a quick glance at Gallew, wondering if her real purpose in asking him to sleep with council members was actually to destroy his already tenuous credibility among the Ganzarites. "We do not approve of such attitudes either..."

"Here we simply have the means -- by virtue of our higher levels of education and civilization -- to conquer instead of being conquered," the minister of the interior said.

"That still doesn't give you the right..."

Dargion, the normally moderate chair of the council, interrupted him with a laugh. "Captain Kirk, we have the right to shape and mold our men as we please, just as your higher level of civilization and technology allows you to come and dictate change for us and our society."

Kirk cleared his throat and tried to keep his temper in check. "By insisting on equal rights for all citizens, we are simply trying to guide you towards a higher and more productive level of civilization."

This provoked general laughter from all around the table.

"But that's exactly what we're doing for our men!" the minister of the interior exclaimed.

Kirk's preparations for a rebuttal were interrupted when a servant placed a note underneath his hand.

"Make no further attempts to contact me" was written on the scrap of paper in Ganzarite. There was no signature.

Kirk crumpled it in one hand.

* * * ***** * * *

Chekov sat in the darkness of an unknown location waiting for the sound of footsteps. He wasn't sure how long he'd been there. When he'd awakened, he found himself confined inside an enclosure made primarily of a wire mesh with his hands bound behind him. As little as Chekov liked the idea, he had to admit to himself that the "enclosure" was actually a cage -- or even more accurately, a pen. There was evidence that some creature with feathers was normally kept in it. The structure was around three feet square, allowing him insufficient room to stand. The bottom seemed to be made of wood. He'd thought of turning the cage over on its side and kicking the flooring out, but experimentation had revealed that contact with the metallic mesh was too painful to maintain for more than a split second. He was, regardless, currently marshalling his resolve for another attempt.

From the little he could see in the moonlight, the ensign thought that he might be in one of the outbuildings on the property from which he had liberated Commander Ghyka. Chekov took hope in the fact that the Intelligence Officer was nowhere in sight or sound.

He wished beyond reason and probability that Ghyka had somehow escaped and reconsidered his plan about sending Chekov back to ....Tarell. The mere thought of her name sent a wave of despair through the ensign's knotted insides. He knew that if Ghyka had so ordered, he would have gone back to face whatever his owner cared to mete out for his unexplained disappearance, but for this...

'That's nothing next to what they do to you when they catch you outside the walls,' Tirst's voice said inside his head.

"Oh, God, what have they done to me?" Chekov groaned as nauseating dread settled in his stomach. He'd faced what he'd thought was certain death and not felt this afraid.

Another fear began to grow inside him. Perhaps what the Ganzarites had done to him -- through conditioning or this mysterious "control device" that Ghyka alleged he'd been briefed on -- was irreversible. His entire personality was changing. In a few short days, he'd become hesitant and apprehensive, suffering from profound feelings of inferiority and helplessness. He was no longer mentally fit to be a Star Fleet officer.

"I could be feeling these things as a result of purposeful conditioning," he told himself. "So that, like Tirst, I will cease to wish to return to my former life because I feel I would no longer be accepted or seen as competent."

'Then again,' his mind replied, 'it would be as effective to actually make you unfit as it would to make you think you're unfit. And if you are still capable, then why aren't you trying to get out of this cage right now?'

"Because it is going to hurt," he answered himself, drawing in a deep breath in preparation for one more attempt at overturning his wire prison. "It is going to hurt terribly."

He got as far as taking a preparatory sway in the opposite direction when he noticed that there was pale yellow light coming through the cracks of the building. This was not a good sign. The visitor the ensign was hoping for would not come carrying a Ganzarite hiotaz stone. Chekov hoped that the light was only the owner or residents of the property checking on something elsewhere, but the glow drew steadily brighter.

He closed his eyes as the door creaked open. A palpable atmospheric change told the ensign that the person who entered the building was Tarell. He was seated facing the wall to the right of the entrance. He remained in that position, blinking at his feet and the sturdy wooden floor of his cage as his eyes adjusted to the pale light. When he could finally stand the silence no longer, he took a quick look over his right shoulder to confirm that it was her.

She was standing motionless by the doorway as if she'd been waiting for him to do so. His eyes could rest on her face for only a second. Tarell was angry. Her anger silently filled the room. It echoed painfully through his mind and down the length of his spine. The feeling only got worse as she stepped closer. 

He could see her laced shoes with his peripheral vision as she stood quietly surveying him for several minutes. If a person could die of shame and despair, the ensign would have gladly perished on the spot. To be seen by his worst enemy -- his owner -- in such a condition -- caged like some sort of stupid domesticated animal...

"Well, alien," Tarell said, letting the pack she was carrying on her shoulder fall to the floor. "You certainly managed to land face first in the fertilizer this time, didn't you?"

Chekov didn't reply. He wondered if his condition would seem any better if he'd not fallen into the hands of the crudest, most insensitive woman on the planet.

He ignored her as well as he could as she knelt down and began to take things out of her bag. Morbid curiosity finally got the better of him and his eyes wandered towards her satchel. As soon as he did so, he had to turn back away, very sorry to see his fears confirmed.

"Not looking at it won't make it go away," Tarell said, as she crossed over to hang the long black quirt on a hook on the wall in front of him.

Chekov closed his eyes and wished himself a billion miles away as cold sweat began to form around the collar of his shirt.

Tarell turned and faced him. "Not looking at me won't make me go away either."

He tried to look at her, but all the defiance he could muster only got his eyes to the level of her knees. He couldn't even maintain that much as she stepped close and unlatched a small opening in the top of the cage.

"Don't pull away from me," she snapped as he flinched from the hand she thrust through the opening.

"But you're going to hurt me." The words burst unstoppably from his lips.

"Yes, I'm going to hurt you," Tarell confirmed, reaching in and pulling him towards her by a handful of the shirt he was wearing. "I am going to hurt you to within an inch of your fornicating, idiotic, offworldish life... But not right now. Lean forward so I can untie you."

Chekov rested his cheek against his knees as she undid the knots binding him, loving the pleasant sensation of her fingers was they occasionally brushed against his skin and hating himself for doing so.

"Now," she said, turning back to her pack and removing a small medical kit, "show me where the dart hit you."

"In the chest," he answered, rubbing the circulation back into his wrists.

After a moment, he noticed she'd stopped talking or moving. When he looked up, he knew immediately that this was because he'd displeased her in some way. Having profoundly displeased her in so many ways, he was at a loss to isolate what was bothering her at this moment.

"I said _show_ me," she repeated in a low, dangerous voice. "Are you too stubborn to obey simple commands, or just too stupid?"

The ensign decided it was not wise to admit to being either as he reluctantly opened his shirt for the Ganzarite.

"There doesn't seem to be any point," he said more to himself than to her as she ran a sealer over the small wound.

"In what? In my healing a little hole in your chest right before I cut a few big ribbons into your back?" Tarell asked grimly. "No, that doesn't make sense. Then again, it doesn't make very much sense for you to be sitting here in this kitvas coop, does it?"

"No," Chekov answered readily.

"It's not where you should be, is it?"

"No," he agreed.

"Then what are you doing here?"

He didn't have a reply for this.

Tarell sat back on her heels. "Why did you come after that other offworlder? Didn't you know you could never get away with such a thing?"

He knew she wouldn't listen to his answer to this question. She seemed incapable of understanding duty and loyalty \-- except to her.

"Well, you didn't do him a favor." Tarell crossed her arms. "They had to put him down."

Chekov didn't want to believe his ears. "What?"

"Put him down. Put him to sleep." Tarell held the sealer against her neck and made a hissing noise like a hypo. "You know what I mean. Foushee had to give him the shot."

"Ghyka's dead?" A feeling of bottomless despair overtook him. His only chance for returning to the _Enterprise_ was gone. "You murdered him?"

"You had more to do with it than I did," Tarell said, calmly putting the sealer back into her kit. "And you're not using the right word. He wasn't murdered. You can only murder free people."

The worst thing was that the ensign had utterly failed Uhura. Instead of rescuing the man she charged him to protect, he'd taken actions that had led to Ghyka's death. Why hadn't he been more careful? He'd had ample warning that the Intelligence Officer was in a precarious situation with the woman holding him. Why hadn't he taken the time to think?

"It's unusual that you should care so much about another man," Tarell commented dispassionately. "What was your connection to him? Were you his lover?"

The Ganzarite term she used was a good deal less delicate than 'lover'.

"No," Chekov answered shortly.

"Then what's all this for?" she asked, gesturing to the tears escaping down his cheeks.

The ensign swiped at his eyes. "I don't know. Lately I have become rather emotionally unstable."

Tarell shrugged as she removed the Vegan medical monitor from her pack. "As long as it's not mentally unstable..."

"I am not sure of that either."

"This all had something to do with a woman then," Tarell speculated as she handed the medical monitor down through the opening to him. "Doesn't it?"

The ensign made no reply as he set the device down on the floor of the enclosure.

"An offworldish woman, right?" Tarell hypothesized, reading his body language. "One that the other offworlder belonged to? Perhaps kin of an offworldish woman you know?"

Chekov kept his mouth closed as he put one hand inside the monitor and activated it.

"If you don't tell me now, you'll tell me later," Tarell warned.

Chekov knew that this was correct. He resisted only to prove to himself that he still could -- as a final act of loyalty to Uhura. He didn't want even the lieutenant's beautiful name on the unworthy lips of this Ganzarite barbarian.

"Sahshell was right," Tarell said, narrowing her eyes. "I was too lenient to let you keep your memories of the offworld. They've made you nothing but trouble and done me no good. Well, I'll soon remedy that situation."

"What will happen to me?" Chekov asked, in a tone that he strove to keep from sounding fearful. "Do you intend to 'give me the shot' also?"

"No." Tarell collected several pieces of string from her bag. "Because if you're dead, I can't punish you any more than that." She paused, then looked up and smiled at him. "And I do want to punish you."

All the courage the ensign dredged up from his memories of Lt. Uhura inexorably drained away.

"And I do intend to punish you. I am going to punish you tonight. I am going to punish you tomorrow morning." She counted her plans off one at a time on a cord that looked as though she'd knotted it for the sole purpose of recording his transgressions. "I am going to punish you tomorrow afternoon. I am going to punish you the next day and the next day and the next day until I am completely over being angry with you about this. And that may take some time. You've been a lot of trouble to me, you know. It's not enough that you go over my walls -- which is a very serious offence. And as a consequence, the law requires that I contribute a certain sum to the community for my negligence in allowing you to do so."

"I was not aware that you would be held responsible," Chekov said, studying the floor of his cage.

"Let's both hope the adjudicator is in a good mood when she arrives to witness that you receive the proper punishment for having done so," Tarell said grimly. "I'm also going to be fined because you crossed onto another woman's property AND assaulted one of her servants -- who is in very serious condition right now, by the way -- AND encouraged and aided a valuable piece of her property to escape."

He couldn't suppress the involuntary shudder that ran down the length of his spine at the mere mention of that forbidden term.

"Oh, you flinch now at the word, but you didn't flinch away from the fornicating deed, did you?"

"I am the only one who should suffer because of my actions," Chekov said, his voice choked down to half-volume.

"Well, you're going to suffer for them, laddie. I'm going to see that you pay for each and every disobedience -- from crossing my wall and trespassing to going without shoes and lying to me about reading the fornicating manual for that piece of offworldish manure."

The medical monitor bleeped as if in protest to this slander. Chekov picked it up and handed it to the Ganzarite.

"When I'm done with you, you won't remember a word of offworldish nonsense, but you'll be an expert on the laws of this land and my household," she promised hotly as she accepted it.

He didn't offer advice or even lift his eyes high enough to watch as she recorded the readings on the monitor's indicators.

"You won't be suffering alone, if that's any comfort," she informed him.

It wasn't a comfort.

"I know that Tirst put you up to it and that Sahshell encouraged him to encourage you."

Chekov bit his lip.

"No use protecting them. They certainly wouldn't do the same for you. Come on now, admit it. Tirst told you where the offworld monitoring device was, didn't he?"

Chekov thought of the advice Tirst had recommended to him to evade betraying his informants. Not only did the humiliating options for avoiding punishment the Northerner had given the ensign seem unattractive, they also seemed futile. If the law required Tarell to discipline him in a certain manner in front of a witness, it seemed there was little he could do to get out of that.

"Come on." Tarell impatiently reached out and rattled the side of the cage. "Admit it."

"I deduced that you would require such a device to monitor the whereabouts of your... men," the ensign said, providing what he hoped was a plausible alternative explanation. "I reasoned that it would be hidden somewhere near your computer..."

"You mean the machine," she corrected firmly.

"Yes... the machine," he said, acquiescing to her primitive linguistic preference. "I looked for it until I found it."

Tarell frowned at him, her eyes narrowed disbelievingly. He met her gaze for as long as he could.

"It doesn't matter if he helped you or not," she said, at length. "I can't have both of you in the same house. I see that now. He's too jealous. I've been too permissive with him for too long. He and Sahshell will keep plotting and scheming until they get you killed the way they did the last one I bought."

Chekov swallowed hard and wondered how big a part the Northerner had played in his recapture.

"Well..." Tarell took a bottle of pills out of her pack. "I think it's time that Sahshell took an extended visit back home to visit with our relatives. And Tirst... I should have gotten rid of him years ago."

"You mean kill him," Chekov corrected boldly, although his voice didn't go above a whisper.

Tarell met his eyes coldly. "It's him or you, offworlder."

Summoning his last ounce of courage, Chekov forced himself to answer in an even voice. "Then let it be me."

"Oh, shut up," Tarell replied irritably. "Being dramatic isn't going to get you out of anything."

"I am completely serious," he insisted, his path clear. "I cannot live this way. You have taken from me who I am. I cannot live as an animal, as a creature with no thought other than doing your will."

Tarell snorted contemptuously as she measured out a dose of medicine for him.

"Think of yourself, Tarell," he persisted, stopping her hand as she reached in to give him the pills. "You have lived all your life as a free person. If that were to suddenly change and you were to become what I must become, would you wish to continue to live?"

The Ganzarite pulled her hand away. There was something in her face... as if she'd never considered the situation from that point of view before.

"If you do as you intend," Chekov continued urgently, "you kill all that I was, all that I am, and all that I ever wished to be. Could physical death be any worse than that?"

The hard lines of Tarell's face didn't soften as she continued to stare at him, but she did nothing to stop him from speaking.

"Please, Tarell," he begged. "For just a moment, look at me as though I were a real person like yourself, not a white, alien man."

He could see that he lost her as soon as his last words left his mouth. His plea had only reminded her of what he was in relation to her. Tarell's brief moment of cultural doubt was over.

"You are what you are," she said, forcing the pills into his hand. "The sooner you learn to live with that, the better it will be for both of us."

"Tarell..."

"One good thing," she said, standing up and crossing to the hook on the wall. "You'll be getting the worst beatings out of the way first. Since you're so small, I doubt the adjudicator will order over twelve lashes for you."

"So I will remember," he said bitterly.

"No," she said, as she shook out the coils. "These will be to make you forget."

* * * ***** * * *

Kirk sat on the bed in his chambers watching the night breeze gently flap the curtains as he waited for a visitor. The knock at his door told him this one wasn't going to be the one he was hoping for. "Come."

Johnson entered, looking cautiously about for other callers. "Sir?"

"Progress report," Kirk ordered sourly.

"We have made some progress, sir," the security man reported with measured optimism. "Knowing the sort of technology being used to amplify the ginzite interference with scanning has enabled the _Enterprise's_ sensor specialists to compensate somewhat. We've improved our scan accuracy by nearly forty percent."

"Which means?"

"We can distinguish population areas from unoccupied areas, but are still unable locate specific individuals -- Ganzarite or Human. The natural distortion is too great."

Kirk rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Do we have sufficient resolution for using the transporter for beam down?"

Johnson stopped and squared his shoulders before answering. "The risk parameters would be acceptable for a security team on a rescue mission."

Kirk smiled grimly. This meant that beaming down was okay for people who were willing to risk having their feet materialized into a rock or being beamed in over the surface of a lake. "If we only had a location..." 

"Then you've not seen any progress in that area?" Johnson speculated delicately.

"None," his captain answered flatly.

"What about the evidence we've gathered of alien technology being used here, sir? Couldn't we use that to put pressure on the Ganzarite government?"

"My orders specifically state that I am not to confront the Ganzarites with any evidence of alien presence we gather under any circumstances," Kirk replied. "This is Intelligence's show. They want to preserve their element of surprise... even at the cost of their own man."

"And our own man," Johnson added softly.

"Yes, well, we have to be off this planet by this time tomorrow, Lieutenant. I'm going to give my native informant until morning to contact me and then..." Kirk's mouth twisted into a smile of its own accord. "My orders say that I can't confront the Ganzarites directly about anything we find. But if I don't hear from my informant by morning, I'll see what a little indirect confrontation turns up."

"Yes, sir." Johnson turned, taking that as a dismissal. He paused by the door. "Do you think that's going to be enough, sir?"

"Enough to keep you and I from preparing a 'missing, presumed dead' report on Chekov and sending a copy to his parents?" Kirk shook his head. It was a relief to be dealing with security personnel in a situation like this one. There wasn't any need to soft-pedal the truth to them. "It looks like we're going to need a miracle for that, Johnson."

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

 

The little bells inside Chekov's shoe jangled as his toe hit the floor in a slow but steady rhythm as he studied the patterns the late afternoon sun made on the floor in front of him.

Tarell didn't look up from her accounts. "You're making noise again."

He was lying on his stomach beside Tarell's desk in her office. His left foot was tied to one of the legs of the desk. This was supposedly done so he would remember not to try to get up or change position. Chekov didn't think there was really much danger of his doing so. There wasn't another position he could take comfortably. He stilled his right foot.

"I'm sorry," he replied, resting his head on his arm so that he was looking at the wall opposite from where Tarell was sitting.

"Are you tired of practicing knots? You can stop if you want."

He dropped the piece of string he'd been holding in his left hand.

"How do you feel? Do you want to go to sleep again?"

One of the worst things was that she kept talking to him like he was a sick child. That was a rather cruel mockery of the actual situation since she'd been the one who had inflicted the wounds he was suffering from with some relish. Being, as she'd told him at some point earlier, primarily concerned with preserving and maintaining his body, after each of the three brutal beatings he'd received thus far, she'd immediately applied healing layers of dermaplast and given him pain killers. Thanks to her well-stocked white chest, he'd received much the same medical attention he would have on ......?

His mind, on the other hand, was in terrible condition. He had assumed when Tarell told him that she was going to make him forget things, that this would be a long process. It had turned out to be much quicker than he could have ever anticipated.

The technique was quite simple. One merely forcibly associated certain topics with extreme pain. The mind, as a result, gave them up with extraordinary willingness. Chekov knew he'd had training that should have made such an easy capitulation on his part unlikely. However, he seemed strangely predisposed to give in to the Ganzarites without a struggle. Although he'd tried to resist or dismiss the pain they inflicted on him, the physical stimulus of being beaten acted like a pre-arranged cue for unresisting cooperation from him in a manner that was completely beyond his control.

Vast portions of his memory had gone as numb as the parts of his back that were now under a layer or two of dermaplast. He wasn't even quite sure what was missing from his remembrances. He recalled having confessed to everything after a depressingly short length of time under interrogation. He knew he'd told them exactly why he'd attempted to leave -- in terms so full of references to things the Ganzarites would have no knowledge of that the explanation had to be largely incomprehensible -- and exactly how he'd accomplished his... attempt to leave. He remembered having told Tarell and her witnesses these things, but he no longer recalled any of his explanation of the why. Large portions of the how were also missing. 

He knew he was on a planet called Ganzar. He knew he was not from that planet. He couldn't exactly remember how he'd gotten there or where he'd come from or why he'd left the place he'd come from. It was like his life was a painting. He still had a sense of what the broad outlines had been, but all the details were gone, painted over in a painful white by a Ganzarite hand.

"I feel lost," he replied.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked cheerfully, as she turned the pages of her account book. "You know where you are, don't you?"

"Yes." He hated that cheerful tone of voice. He suspected it was false. However, he had to cling to it \-- to the possibility that she had or would still forgive him -- to protect himself from the near suicidal feelings of depression that had overtaken him in the wake of the three beatings he'd received in the past twelve hours. 

"Where are you, then?" she asked as one would a particularly stupid child.

"In your house."

"And why are you here?"

"Because you own me," he replied as she'd taught him to, hoping that would satisfy her and that she would leave him alone.

He could hear her put down her writing utensil and turn in her chair.

"Look at me," she ordered.

He shifted his head so that his left eye was focused on the toe of her shoe.

She regarded him silently for a moment.

"You aren't trying to remember things you're not supposed to, are you?" she asked, with calculated mildness.

"I can't remember my name, or my parents' names, or the place where I was born," he said, closing his eyes just in case this might make her angry. "What is the harm in my remembering things like that?"

"Oh, I'm sure you could think of something," she replied wryly. "You remember the name I gave you, don't you?"

He had to think hard to remember. "Brown?"

"No. It was Tavic. That's another word for brown."

"For the color of my eyes." That seemed to spark something. "I have brown eyes like..."

"Don't try to remember things," she cut him off firmly. "You should think about what I told you to be thinking about. You'll have to make a decision in a little while."

The ensign buried his face in his arms. His foot beat slowly against the floor.

"I'd advise you choose one of your minor offences," she said, the cheerful tone returning to her voice. "I can go through and tell you what all the punishments are going to be, if that would help."

As a measure of her endless capacity for sadism, Tarell had decreed that the ensign had to name the order in which he would be punished for the items remaining on the list of his transgressions from the previous evening.

"If I say you have to choose," she reminded him. "you have to choose."

Chekov turned back to watch the irregular patterns the sunlight was making through the translucent material of Tarell's office windows. "I know."

"This will show me that you realize that the things you did were wrong and that you're ready to accept the consequences for them."

"Are there no other possibilities?" he asked the wall. "What if I could think of a way to earn enough money to cover the fines you've incurred?"

Tarell gave a short derisive laugh. "And just what do you think you can do that anyone would pay for? Bring women in and have them pay you to..."

"I could do accounting," he said, interrupting the suggestion which he knew from her tone would be obscene.

"You're not trustworthy," she said, harshly. "I wouldn't trust you to do my accounts and I own you. A woman would have to be a fool to let someone else's servant come into their house and see their accounts."

"Why?" he asked, turning back towards her.

"There'd be nothing preventing you from running back home and telling me everything about their setup."

"It would work well for you if they incautious enough to do so, wouldn't it?" he said, hoping to play on her greed.

"These Southerners are inbred, not stupid," she dismissed the idea. "Besides, the judgment of the adjudicator was that you weren't to be allowed to set foot out of this house for four seasons."

"Oh." He turned his face back towards the wall. Four seasons was nearly two years. Two years virtually alone with Tarell...

"You've been officially declared a menace to the community," she said bitterly, "and will have to prove yourself the meekest, most subservient and well-trained servant in the whole township before I'll be allowed to take you to other people's houses."

"I'm sorry," he apologized to her and to himself and to the vaguely remembered people he'd left for an unknown reason to come to this dreadful place.

"Well, it's not all you," Tarell relented. "I've made these Southerners put up with having Tirst in their fine parlors for years now -- stinking, ill-bred thing that he is. They don't think I know how to make a man behave properly. But I'll show them, won't I, offworlder?"

He had the strongest feelings that this statement was true but didn't have the heart to respond.

"All right," she said, taking a sheet of paper off her desk. "Here are my options as I see them. I think I've got no choice but to keep Sahshell and Tirst here during the harvest. I don't see how I can run a harvest without them and have to look after you at the same time -- which I know I can't trust anyone else to do. I usually bring in two of my nieces to help with harvest -- well, they're actually daughters of one of my cousins, but they look to me as an aunt. I wasn't going to bring them in this time because of you. You see, they're still young girls and adolescents can be a little... impulsive about how they treat other people's property at times."

It took him a minute to figure this out. Tarell wasn't usually euphemistic about such things.

"I've decided I'll offer to let them bed you right off to keep them from getting curious," she said in a tone that brooked no argument. "So you'd better get used to that idea and make up your mind that you're going to cooperate."

Chekov turned back towards her. "How old are they?" he asked cautiously.

"It doesn't matter if they're fornicating newborns," she snapped. "If I say you'll have sex with them, you'll have sex with them and keep your fornicating mouth closed about it, understand? It's for your own protection, you stupid idiot. I can't have the two of them luring you off to do some of the things that Sahshell and I used to do to our aunts' men when we were that age. If there's no mystery about you, it's more likely they'll leave you alone."

The ensign hid his face in his arms again. His right foot beat softly against the floor.

"I should have let Sahshell have at you," Tarell said. "That might have spared me some trouble, but she's already had two daughters..."

"Two?" His foot stopped. "Where are they?"

"With our mother. In the North, the grandmother always raises the child from the time they're weaned 'til the time they come of age."

Given the Ganzarite's reliance on extended family networks, this practice wasn't unreasonable. "Leaving the mother free to work?"

"Yes," Tarell confirmed. "But I'll not do it for the daughter you give me. I wouldn't trust my mother to care for a child with offworldish blood. And I'll not have my daughter raised to think she's less than perfect in any way."

Chekov looked at her. It struck him as very odd that she could regard him as a complete inferior -- at best she treated him as though he were a particularly stupid and rebellious child himself -- and then speak so positively about the possibility of having offspring with him.

"And that's another thing," she continued, a genuinely pleased tone entering her voice. "I'll be pregnant soon -- if I'm not already -- and I'll need someone to run things for me while I'm down with the heavy months. I don't think I could trust Sahshell to do it. I'll have to get one of my younger sisters or cousins to come in and run the house and the men. You'll have to take care of me then, offworlder -- fetch things for me, feed me, make sure my heart isn't beating too fast."

She laughed at the way he looked at her. "You may even decide you actually like me. Tirst did the first time I was pregnant."

"What happened to the child you had with him?" Chekov asked, all this talk about his possible children with his tormentress making him feel more than a little ill.

"I caught him trying to smother it and had to sell it before it was even weaned," she reported matter-of-factly.

"You sold your own child?"

"It was a boy, you have to sell boys sooner or later -- unless you're one of these Southerners and let them mate with your daughters. I found good homes for both the boys Tirst and I had -- and got prices for them that you wouldn't believe. I guess I'm not the only one that likes Tirst's looks." 

Chekov listened to the light tone in her voice disbelievingly. "It didn't bother you to sell your own children as servants?"

"They were boys," she insisted, as if that explained everything. "That's what happens to boys. I said that I found them good homes. That's the most that you can do for a boy. It bothered me that Tirst tried to kill one of them and would have the other if he'd gotten the chance, but it doesn't bother me to know that my boys are being cared for by people who value them greatly. I sold one of them to one of the few friends I have here in this village. That boy's being raised to be the primary mate of her oldest daughter -- a bright little girl, just came of age last year, I believe. She already adores him. You should see the two of them together. Now that's a Southern custom I intend to adopt. When we have a little girl and she gets to be about that age, I'll buy her a baby boy or two to raise to be her servants. It teaches the girl responsibility at a young age and gives her a servant whose loyalty she can depend on absolutely. I wish my mother had done it for me."

Chekov blinked at her. It filled him with a peculiar sense of panic that he might have already fulfilled his principal role in producing another being to perpetuate the inhumane social system of which he had become a helpless victim.

"Aren't you even a little excited at the prospect of having a little girl?" Tarell asked.

Chekov put his face against his arms. "Not particularly."

"You're too young," she dismissed his lack of enthusiasm with uncharacteristic indulgence. "You've probably never even thought about having children. But you'll like it when it happens. You can't help but like babies when they come. And you won't have to face losing it like Tirst did. You're guaranteed to give me a daughter. And I'll let you be around her as much as you like -- if you prove yourself trustworthy. I'll not take the chance with a little girl that you would do to it what Tirst tried to."

"I wouldn't harm a child," the ensign assured her. "Not even one born into this wretched culture."

"Not _a_ child," Tarell corrected. " _Your_ child. That makes a difference. You'll see. It will change you, make you stop being so selfish and uncooperative. It will make man out of you, a good companion for me. It did Tirst -- for a while. But things won't go the way they did for Tirst. I think the disappointment of having sons made him bitter. And he's just gotten more and more bitter."

"You don't want to get rid of him, do you?" he asked, noting the strong tone of regret in her voice.

"You don't need to think about that, offworlder," she said bruskly, turning back to her work.

"But it is probably only coincidence that you haven't had female offspring with him," he protested. "The probability is..."

"I don't have time for probability," she interrupted firmly.

"If the yellow pills can enable me..."

"Now, don't start that," she cut him off harshly, turning back to point an accusing finger at him. "You should have never told Tirst that the offworlders have pills that can make you have daughters. It only gives him false hope."

"But it's the truth," he insisted bravely.

Tarell frowned and crossed her arms. "I know it's true. I may not be an offworlder but I'm not so stupid I couldn't figure that out. But they don't want to sell it to me. At first they said they couldn't do it at all and now they keep raising the price higher than I can afford to pay."

"What if.."

"Stop." She put a silencing hand between her and his objections. "Just shut up. I've finally been able to come to the decision about Tirst I've been too sentimental to make for too many years now. And I don't need any ignorant, offworld advice from you, so just shut up. From now on, I don't ever want to hear you even mention his name. Do you understand me?"

Chekov sighed as he rested his chin against his hands and studied the floor in front of him. "Yes, Tarell," he agreed obediently, not realizing that his right foot had begun to tap against the floor again. 

"I've got you now." Tarell reopened her account book with a determined sounding flip. "And I'm going to be happy with you -- even if it kills both of us."

Her sister Sahshell entered suddenly without knocking. "You've got visitors Tarell," she announced ominously.

Tarell drew in a deep breath as she closed her book. "Well, bring them in."

"No," Sahshell made a series of unreadable signals in Chekov's direction. "I think you need to come see them."

"All right." From her tone, it didn't sound as though Tarell was exactly sure of what was going on either. 

"Behave yourself, offworlder," she cautioned as she stepped over him.

"Yes, Tarell," he answered perfunctorily, then added as the door closed behind the two sisters, "Like I have a choice."

He didn't really care enough to waste effort on speculating on who Tarell's visitors might be even though they were obviously there in some sort of connection to him. Probably someone who'd discovered something else that he could now barely remember that they felt he needed to be abused for having done, said, or thought.

Instead, he tried to remember. It was maddening to know that he had memories of who he was that he could no longer access. It was more irritatingly painful than the tingling wounds on his back. His back would heal completely. In days, it would be hard to tell the injuries had ever been there. Tarell would see to that. She would never let his mind properly mend though, and would further the damage if she saw fit.

Chekov bit his lip. He couldn't resign himself to living without his memories. A scene that Tarell hadn't managed to obliterate came to him. He was standing in the snow in a place with tall trees... The place was called .... He was waiting for ....

Tarell rushed back into the room in a high state of excitement. "Get up, offworlder," she ordered. "I've got some buyers here to see you."

"Buyers?" Chekov repeated blankly.

"Yes." She quickly knelt and untied his left foot. "I found it a little hard to believe at first, too."

She helped him carefully up to standing. He was very stiff, but the pain wasn't nearly what it had been a few hours ago. He looked up at her as she straightened his clothes.

"You're going to sell me?" he asked, feeling vaguely betrayed.

"I'm going to try to." She took him by the firmly by the shoulders. "Now listen to me, laddie. You mind your manners very carefully. Keep your eyes on the floor and don't speak without seeing that you have my permission first. Do you understand?"

"I suppose."

"You'd better do more than suppose. If I catch you looking at them or making one peep out of line, I'll turn you over my knee right in front of them. And trust me, you don't want that to happen."

"No," he agreed, then repeated disbelievingly, "You are going to sell me?"

"What's the matter?" She grinned and chucked him under the chin. "You think you're going to be sorry to leave me all the sudden?"

"I don't know." This did seem very out of character, but it was definitely what he was feeling -- perhaps simply because the devil he knew seemed better than one he didn't. "What sort of people are they?"

"People crazy enough to come looking for a stupid little thing like you," she said as she led him to the middle of the room and put him into what she thought was a suitable position. "Now shut your mouth and keep it shut. Trust me, if you foul this deal up for me, you'll regret it the rest of your life."

Chekov wondered if this would be any worse than any of the other multitude of things in connection to the Ganzarite that he foresaw regretting for the rest of his life as she strode over and opened the office door.

"Well, here he is," she said, welcoming her as yet unseen guests.

From the little Chekov could see, both of the newcomers were women. One was tall, the other short.

"Come over here, laddie," Tarell ordered pleasantly. "Let them get a good look at you."

The ensign kept his eyes carefully on the floor as he came forward to stand in front of the two visitors.

"As you see, he's in good shape." Tarell patted him on the shoulder. "Not a mark on him."

"Not a mark that we can see," the short woman commented, perhaps noting the way he involuntarily flinched from Tarell's touch.

Her voice took Chekov by surprise. There was something odd about it -- something strange about her inflection.

"I can have him undress for you," Tarell offered cannily, "but he's awfully shy -- See, look how pink he's gone in the face just at the mention of it. I'm afraid he'd put up a fuss and make a bad impression."

Chekov knew that it was probably the string of welts across his back that Tarell feared would make a bad impression on the prospective buyers.

"He's really a very mild-mannered one," she continued, reaching out to tousle Chekov's hair. "But you know how offworlders can be."

"You say that the woman you're buying him for collects offworlders?" Sahshell asked.

"She has a few," the short woman answered.

There was something wrong with the woman's voice. There was something terribly unpleasant about it. The sound made Chekov's head hurt.

"That's awfully unusual," Sahshell was saying. "I don't think I've ever heard of anyone doing that."

"That's because we're not Westerners, Sahshell," Tarell answered before her guest had a chance to respond. "In the West, they do all sorts of things we may have never heard of... Now as I was saying, he's in good condition. And he's very clever. He speaks the language well."

"As well as you do, I dare say," Sahshell said to the tall woman.

"He can even run machines," Tarell said quickly.

"She means _computers_ ," Sahshell informed the visitors conspiratorially.

"He seems fine." The short woman walked into Chekov's line of vision. She had a pleasant face with dark skin and large brown eyes, but Chekov felt there was something terribly, terribly wrong with it. Something about the way her face looked made the inside of his skull burn. She smiled up at him. "Would you like to come home with me?"

The combination of her face and voice was too much for him. He had to press his fists against his eyes to keep his head from splitting apart from the pain. "Uhhh..."

"What's the matter?" The short woman grabbed his shoulders.

"She told you he was shy," Sahshell said cattily.

"That's not shy," the tall woman said. "He's in pain."

"Yes." Tarell gently but firmly pulled him out of the short woman's grasp. "He's been having headaches. I have some medicine for him. Let me give it to him."

The short woman released him reluctantly. 

"I think he drank some of our water by accident," Tarell said as she guided him to her desk. "You know these offworlders have bad reactions to the water at first. That's it, isn't it, laddie?"

Chekov looked at her questioningly as she put a white pill into his mouth. He couldn't figure out what was making him react so badly to the short woman. He couldn't figure out why Sahshell seemed to be baiting the visitors and Tarell was lying every other breath.

"I said, it's a headache, isn't it?" Tarell asked with one of her smiles that meant he was about to be in terrible trouble.

"Yes." Chekov allowed himself to be led back to a position a little further away from the strangers.

"Nothing to worry about," Tarell assured them. "It'll pass in a few days. I've taken very good care of him."

The short woman was no longer smiling. "How much are you asking for him?"

"Oh, I'm not asking anything. I've not decided if I want to part with him." Tarell patted Chekov on the back -- a careful distance above where she'd beaten him earlier. "He's a personable little thing. We've grown quite fond of him."

The short woman took a bag that jingled from her side. "I'm prepared to offer twenty-seven and six in hard currency."

Chekov looked at Tarell, knowing that the figure was more than five times what she'd paid for him. It seemed he was doomed to go away with this small woman with her unpleasant voice.

Tarell's face betrayed no sign that she was impressed by the high figure.

"I paid nearer to twenty-nine for him," she lied easily.

"Then I raise my offer to twenty-nine and six," the short woman countered.

"I don't know..." Tarell turned to Chekov. She ran a hand down his cheek affectionately. "I've really gotten used to him. Have you noticed how pretty his eyes are?"

"Yes," the short woman answered shortly. "Thirty."

"I don't think I could take under thirty for him," Tarell said slowly.

The short woman jangled the coins in her bag as she held it out. "Here is thirty. This is all I have to offer."

"Then there's the supplies for him you'll need," Tarell continued as if she hadn't heard. "That would put the price up to at least forty."

The short woman let a breath out slowly through her nose then turned and reached a hand out to the tall woman.

"Here's sixty," she said dropping her bag and the bag her companion gave her at Tarell's feet.

Tarell looked down at the bags. Chekov could feel the Ganzarite's temper rising. It hurt even when she was mad at someone else. At the point where he expected to her to lose her temper, Tarell smiled instead and signalled Chekov to pick the bags up.

Although he did so very gingerly, it was still painful on his abused back. From the sound of her breathing, it seemed like it was now the short woman's turn to be angry.

A smile played about his owner's mouth as she weighed the two sacks in her hands. "He's yours."

"Good," the short woman said, reaching for him.

"Sahshell will get him ready to go for you," Tarell said, quickly stepping between them, "while you and I sign the papers."

The short woman sighed impatiently as Tarell's sister led Chekov away by the hand. "I am anxious to complete this transaction quickly."

"Yes, I'm sure you are..." Tarell was answering as Sahshell led the ensign out into the corridor.

Chekov didn't know what to think. He hated Tarell more than he could express in words or thought, but he felt a despair at leaving her. He didn't know what to expect from this strange woman with the awful voice. All she'd done was smile at him and he was already terrified of her. He felt for some reason that he must avoid her. 

"Well, sweet one," Sahshell interrupted his thoughts as she untied the sash with her family colors from around his waist. "I never thought you'd be leaving us like this."

He didn't know how to answer her. Somehow his encounter with the short woman had left him too disoriented to think clearly. And as always, he felt ashamed of the way he responded to Sahshell's touch.

"There's a custom here," Sahshell informed him as she turned him around and tied his hands behind his back. "When a woman sells a servant, her last command to him is, 'Don't come back!' There's not much chance of that happening with you, is there?"

"I don't understand," he said as she turned him back around. 

"Of course you don't." Sahshell smiled cynically as she took a leash off a hook on the wall and put it around his neck. "Tarell's a fool to take such chances. Right now it looks as though she's going to end up a rich, lucky fool, but she's a fool none the less. I doubt this is the last we'll hear about this deal."

He was puzzling over this when Tarell and the two women entered. He fixed his eyes on his chest, fearing to look at the short woman. 

Tarell came up to him and took his face into her hands. "Goodbye, laddie," she said, before kissing him on the lips. She then held him out at arm's length. "Now," she said sternly. "Never come back here again."

"Yes, Tarell," he said, looking down again. Despite the fact that Sahshell had warned him that this was only a traditional phrase, hearing her say it still hurt a little. She seemed awfully glad to part with him.

"He's all yours," Tarell said, holding the end of his leash out to the short woman.

The stranger seemed reluctant to take it at first, but then grabbed it decisively. "Let's go," she said to her companion, leading him to the door.

"A pleasure doing business with you," Tarell called as Sahshell ushered them out.

"And you," the short woman replied rather coldly over her shoulder.

Chekov followed miserably behind the two woman as they walked down the path and through the tall stone wall around Tarell's property. What lay in store for him? Did the violence and humiliations all began again? The short woman seemed to have a worse temper than Tarell's. 

"Prime Directive aside, Lieutenant," the tall woman said to the short woman with words that made Chekov's head ache. "I say we go back and phaser the bitch."

"I'm glad you said that, Ensign," the short woman said, using odd words. "Because if I'd said it, we'd both be in trouble."

A carriage was waiting for them outside the gates.

"Come on, Pavel," the short woman said, taking him by the arm as the tall woman opened the door for them. "I'll untie you when we're inside."

He did as she asked, but he was feeling very disoriented. His head was throbbing so hard that it was impossible to think. He sat down gingerly in the farthermost corner of the coach, trying to spare his back and keep the most distance possible between himself and the short woman. However, she sat right beside him, jostling his hands painfully against the still tender portions of his back as she untied him.

"Get us out of here, Doyle," she called to the tall woman, who had climbed into the front.

The coach jolted forward, throwing them both against the back of their seats. 

"What's the matter, Chekov?" the short woman asked at his sharp intake of breath. "Are you all right?"

He shook his head as he pressed himself against the wall of the coach. He wished she'd stop using all those peculiar words. They made him feel like running away or throwing up. He didn't know how much more of it he could stand.

"Can you talk to me?" The short woman's awful voice sounded concerned.

"I don't know," he answered her cautiously in Ganzarite.

"Why aren't you speaking Standard?" she asked in her bizarre dialect.

"I don't know," he answered in Ganzarite, keeping his eyes on the floor in front of him.

"Look at me," she said, still using painfully outlandish speech. "Do you know who I am?"

He perfunctorily turned his head quickly in her direction and back again. "No, ma'am."

The short woman put a hand on his shoulder. "That woman," she said in Ganzarite. "Did she hurt you?"

Despite the strange effect her voice had on him, her touch bore the same reward the touch of Tarell and her sister had. He bit his lip as he nodded, trying to ignore the stimulus.

As if to make this harder for him, she put her other hand on his leg. "How did she hurt you?"

"I don't want to say," he answered, shifting uncomfortably.

The short woman moved closer and put her arm around his shoulder. "That's fine," she said comfortingly. "If you don't want talk about it, then that's perfectly fine. You're going to be all right, now. We're taking you away from her. We're taking you home. Do you understand me?"

"Yes." Chekov squeezed his eyes closed and clenched his hands together tightly to keep them off the short woman's body. He wouldn't do it. He would control himself this time. Although he knew his resistance would ultimately prove futile if she was determined, he was not going to let it appear that he was eager and willing to have sex with her in the back of a covered carriage.

"Look at me," the short woman insisted. "Ghyka said you were asking for me. That's why I came."

Chekov's eyes opened. "Ghyka?"

"Yes. After the two of you were separated, he managed to break into one of the houses and steal enough equipment to make a crude transmitting beacon. We beamed him up mid-morning and have been looking for you ever since. He didn't know which house you'd been taken to."

Her speech was full of words his mind wouldn't process, but Chekov got the overwhelming impressing that he was receiving very positive information. He smiled for the first time in what felt like years. "Ghyka isn't dead?"

The short woman returned his smile and squeezed his shoulder. "No, Ghyka's alive and fine. And we've found you."

Chekov was very, very happy without quite understanding why. Although it hurt him to look at the woman, he could tell that she liked him a great deal. She was very pleased with him for some reason. And for some reason he was feeling very pleased with himself. He decided he would have sex with her if that's what she wanted.

The short woman seemed surprised when he embraced and kissed her. For a moment he thought she was going to push him away.

"Ensign," she seemed to say through his kiss.

However when she failed repulse him sharply and strike him as Tarell and her sister had done, he decided she that she wished him to continue and spread his kisses over her face and neck. Strangely enough, the typically Ganzarite ridged portion of her nose turned out to be false and fell off when he pressed his lips against it. He didn't let that bother him though and continued to work his way down to her earlobe which was quite real.

A small communicating door opened near the top of the front of the carriage.

"Lieutenant," the tall woman called through the opening. "We're almost out of town. We should be able to signal for beam up in just a few minutes. How's Chekov?"

"Oh," Uhura said, gingerly sliding the ensign's hand off her breast. "I think he's going to be fine."

* * * ***** * * *

The sight of a place that should have been familiar to Chekov was too much for him. He groaned as he clutched his splitting head.

"Get Dr. McCoy down here now," Uhura ordered.

Lt. Hiroto pressed the comm button on her console without pausing to ask any questions. "Medical assistance needed in Transporter Room Three."

Only after she'd gotten an acknowledgment from sickbay, did she dare ask, "Is he okay?"

"Not right now." Uhura gently guided the ensign down to sit on the top step of the transporter. "Take it easy, sugar. Just close your eyes and try to calm down."

"I'll go ahead and make our report to Mr. Spock, Lieutenant," Ensign Doyle offered. "He'll need to contact the captain as soon as possible."

"Thanks, Doyle." Uhura patted Chekov gingerly on the shoulder. "You're going to be all right, sugar."

"What did they do to him?" Hiroto asked, leaving her post to come sit down beside them.

"He's been badly beaten," Uhura warned, stopping Hiroto's hand before it made contact with the ensign's back. "And I think anything that reminds him of the ship gives him spasms of pain."

"Poor thing," Hiroto put her hand comfortingly on the back of his head instead. 

Mindlessly following this soothing sensation back to its source, Chekov leaned against her like a lost child.

"He understands Standard, but won't speak it," Uhura said, beginning to wonder if she should warn Hiroto just before Chekov put his arms around the transporter chief and kissed her deeply. "And he tends to do that when you touch him."

"Oh," Hiroto said, coming back up for air as the medical team burst through the door with a gurney. "You don't say?" 

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

 

"I already know," the chair of the governing council informed Kirk as he entered her office.

Kirk put on his most innocent smile. "That I've come to say goodbye?"

"No," Dargion replied unsmilingly. "That you've recovered both of your men."

If the Ganzarites already knew that they'd found Chekov, then they must have had ways of knowing exactly where the ensign and Ghyka had been from the beginning. Kirk wished that his orders allowed him to give vent to what he would have liked to have said. However, he'd just gotten through talking with Commander Ghyka who had forcefully reminded him that Ganzar was now a situation for Star Fleet Intelligence and the diplomatic corp. A few ill-considered words from the captain and all the hardships endured by Ghyka, Ensign Chekov and nameless others would all have been in vain.

"That is not what I've come to say," Kirk replied politely.

"Oh?" Dargion crossed her arms. "I assume this indicates that I and my planet will be now be dealt with by higher levels of authority than a mere starship captain... I suppose we should be flattered."

Kirk bit his tongue on the reply that came to mind. "I've simply come to say goodbye, Madame Chair." 

Dargion stepped forward angrily as he made a move to leave. "You violated our laws," she accused. "No alien women are allowed on Ganzar. Transportation to the interior is forbidden."

Kirk folded his arms. So, the Ganzarites not only knew exactly what had happened but also how it had happened...

"If you believe that I or members of my crew have violated your laws," he replied evenly, "you are free to register a formal complaint against me with the Federation."

"It looks like you'll be getting what you wanted after all, Captain Kirk," she said bitterly. "We'll have to join the Federation now. The Orions will abandon us and the Klingons would destroy us. Therefore we will join your Federation. Not as full members, of course, we're too backwards and barbaric for that, but after a few years of learning to submit to your ways...."

"Equal rights for all your people will be more equitable for everyone. And if you're going to benefit from the technology that more advanced civilizations have to offer, you've got to learn to be more tolerant of differences. Maybe it's time for your planet to collectively grow up and stop believing that you can have things your way all the time."

"Grow up?" She laughed. "Growing up in your sense only means putting ourselves under the domination of men."

"No. Not at all. If your planet joins the Federation you will see that we value people without regard to gender, race or creed."

"Perhaps so," she said as she walked over to her office door and opened it for him. "But, since that hasn't happened yet and since this is probably the last time I'll ever be able to say anything like this to anyone like you, you can shove it up your ugly white ass and get the hell off my planet, Captain."

"Welcome to the 23rd century, lady," Kirk said, with a vindictive smile as he exited. "Whether you like it or not."

* * * ***** * * *

"Ah, ladies..." Pavel Chekov smiled as Lieutenants Uhura and Hiroto joined him at his table in the Rec room on Deck Five. It was his first day back on the _Enterprise_ after nearly three months of intensive debriefing and psychological rehabilitation at a base in an undisclosed location used by Star Fleet Special Intelligence.

"We've been looking for you," Kathy Hiroto said, setting her tray down next to him.

"How long before you're back on duty?" Uhura asked.

"If I show no adverse reactions, I should be back on the bridge within a week." Chekov answered, feeling a twinge of embarrassment that there were still doubts about his mental competence. This feeling was quickly overwhelmed by the pleasure being back where he was supposed to be. He looked back and forth between the two of them and sighed contentedly. "I want you to know that the whole time I was on Ganzar and much of the time I've been I away, I wanted nothing more than to be here drinking coffee with the two of you."

Hiroto laughed. "Well, Dorothy, you should have just clicked your ruby slippers together a lot sooner."

"Dorothy?" Chekov repeated.

"From the Wizard of Oz..."

"Oh, yes, the Russian fable..."

Uhura shook her head. "Not quite, Ensign."

"I also wanted to apologize..." Chekov began seriously. "My behavior when you recovered me, Lt. Uhura, and in the transporter room was.."

"Oh, never mind about that, sugar." Uhura smiled as she reached out and patted his hand. "I understood."

"Oh, yeah," Hiroto agreed, giving his other hand a reassuring squeeze. "No problem."

Chekov wondered if physical contact with women felt so marvelous as a lingering effect of the control device the Ganzarites had used on him, or because he'd been deprived of such interactions for so long. For the first month, he'd been limited to the exclusive company of male medical personnel. After that, the few females he'd had contact with had been carefully neutral in their dealings with him and religious in their avoidance of touching him. Because of his still vulnerable emotional state, he'd been warned not to form any romantic -- particularly sexual -- relationships with women for at least the next six to twelve month period. The warning had been given so frequently and insistently that Chekov had become quite flattered that the therapists assumed that he had that much of an active social life. 

"Thank you," he said, smiling at his companions. 

"I..." Hiroto began, abruptly stopped. "Oh, never mind."

Although he'd only been back a matter of hours, this was a treatment the ensign had experienced several times already -- friends censoring themselves for fear of upsetting what they seemed to think was his precarious mental balance. He was now beginning to see why the doctors had insisted that he take a week before resuming his duties. They hadn't released him a moment before they and he had felt he had made a sufficient recovery. However, it looked like it was going to take a little while to convince his co-workers of that fact.

"Lieutenant," he said. "If you have a question, please ask. I am not made of glass."

"Right." Hiroto looked at little embarrassed. "I was wondering if you'd heard that Ganzar was officially admitted as a Federation protectorate."

"Yes," Chekov answered, hoping that he sounded as if the question had no impact on him. He might not be made of glass, but he wasn't up to the tensile strength of steel either. "Ganzar's admission was a topic of great interest at the Intelligence base. I followed most of the official debate and hearings."

"I was surprised that it happened so quickly," Hiroto said.

"It had to happen quickly. That planet was being used by the Orions as a testing ground for environmental and psychological warfare techniques that they were planning to use against Klingon agricultural colonies," Uhura said, casually revealing classified information that Chekov had been instructed to disclose under no circumstances. Knowledge of covert Orion actions (which had, contrary to Uhura's information, already begun to take place) against the Klingons could provoke full-scale galactic warfare. "If Ganzar hadn't joined the Federation, either the Orions would have blown the planet away to cover their tracks or the Klingons would have gobbled them up."

"So all those men they have been holding down there will finally be free to go?" Hiroto speculated.

Chekov picked up his cup, gratified that his hands showed no signs of beginning to shake as they had for a very long time in connection with his thinking about that planet. "Theoretically."

"You don't think the Ganzarites will be forced to let them go?"

"No." Chekov decided he'd put the coffee down -- just as a precaution. "I doubt the men will leave."

"I don't understand that," Hiroto said. "I mean from what I understood, the whole thing was... pretty unpleasant."

"Very unpleasant," Chekov confirmed. "It is difficult to explain... The Ganzarites are adept at a variety of techniques to convince you that you have no option other than cooperation... from the obliteration of memories to engendering profound feelings of inferiority and incompetence."

Within a few days after the doctors had killed the organic half of the control device using the same experimental drug with which they had vaccinated Ghyka and surgically removed the mechanical half, the bulk of the ensign's memories had returned. That had been the only easy or quick part of his recovery process. Complicating matters was the fact that Chekov's faith in his own self-worth had been so profoundly shaken by the experience, he was often unable or unwilling to aid in his recovery. With no help from him, it had taken the rehabilitation experts weeks to notice things like the way he avoided mirrors and went to great lengths to keep from using the word "escape".

The ensign had been able to make a measure of real progress towards regaining his self-esteem after when Intelligence finally told him that the reason he'd been particularly susceptible to the machinations of the control device was not due to his own weakness, but because the Ganzarites were using a newer, stronger generation of the device. It and the four-hour initial conditioning session (of which Chekov had never regained full memory) were designed by Orion mind-control experts to defeat the rigorous anti-interrogation programming, natural aggression, and superior physical capabilities of Klingon military personnel. Despite Star Fleet training, a civilized person with a normal human nervous system was not much of a challenge for the device in comparison. 

"Bitches," Hiroto pronounced.

"Did you find out what happened to the woman who had you?" Uhura asked. "From what I've heard about your report, you believed that she knew that we were aliens when she sold you to us."

Chekov nodded. "Definitely."

"I imagine that got her into some trouble."

"I do not know." Chekov picked up the cup again to test his hand. His grip was within his standards of acceptability for steadiness. He wondered if this was only because he was following the advice Tarell had given him about painful subjects -- not allowing himself to consider it too deeply. Although his therapists had encouraged him not to, he usually avoided thinking about Tarell at all. "I did not inquire."

"Well, I say she deserves whatever she gets," Hiroto said heatedly.

"Amen to that," Uhura echoed.

"Is that the way you feel about it, Chekov?"

He avoided thinking about Tarell because he wasn't sure how he felt... or more accurately because he was afraid that he would discover he felt some guilt and regret at having left her or that there was a masochistic trace of affection in his remembrances of the Ganzarite. He wondered if she'd sold him to people that she and her sister had immediately spotted as offworld imposters because she'd sensed that there was a fantastic profit to be made or because in the end she'd taken pity on him. He wondered if she'd found a way to get the yellow pills for Tirst. He wondered if he'd given Tarell the daughter she wanted so badly. He wondered if a little girl with brown eyes and red human blood would grow up on Ganzar... 

This was always the point where he made himself stop wondering about such things. It always led him to the same inevitable conclusion. His presence on Ganzar had not been a hallucination or a bad dream. A million years of psychological rehabilitation couldn't change the reality of his experience. His presence had consequences for himself and the beings with whom he had come into contact. A part of his heart and mind would always remain captive to Ganzar, never to escape.

In the hopes that he would some day come to accept this, he drank a sip of the good coffee he'd ordered for himself, and smiled at his two good friends. "There is an old proverb..."

"An old Russian proverb?" Uhura guessed.

"Of course," he acknowledged graciously. "According to this proverb, living well is the best revenge. Ladies, I intend to live the rest of my life very, very well."

* END * 


End file.
